Monitor farms under the squeeze

Marlborough's Monitor Farm programme will not be shorn, at least in the short term, but some North Island programmes may fall by the wayside after M&WNZ's wool levies were lost last month. At last week's monitor farm day, held at Mt Adde, M&W SI manager Gary Walton said both the Marlborough and Nelson monitor farms would receive the same funding for the next year. However, there were two monitor farm programmes on hold in the North Island reports The Marlborough Express. The fixed annual running cost of the Marlborough monitor farm programme was about $26,500. About 15% of that was funded by the wool levy. Other programmes run by Meat & Wool would be cut to accommodate the monitor farm programme, he said. The monitor farm programme has run since 1991 and focuses on an individual farm in a region where the agribusiness community helps it come up with a three-year business plan, and regular field trips are held at the property for other farmers to contribute and learn. There are 24 programmes in New Zealand. The programme was put in jeopardy last month after the goat, meat and wool levies were lost on a one-farmer-one-vote basis in a referendum. The wool levy exit would take away $6.4 million from Meat & Wool's projected $30m income for the next financial year. Another $5m would be lost through leveraged funding. "Meat & Wool still sees that (the monitor farm programme) as a flag ship of operations, but we will be doing things considerably different," said Mr Walton. "There's a major shift coming."The better allocation of funds would be a primary focus in the future and a further review of the monitor farm programme would be conducted by March next year, but Marlborough and Nelson's would continue beyond 12 months, he said.