09 August 2011 Uruguayan Agriculture Minister to hear about agribusiness expertise at Lincoln University

Lessons New Zealand has learned as a “price taker” for international products on international markets will be described by Lincoln University’s Professor of Agribusiness Keith Woodford, to Uruguay’s Minister of Agriculture, Tabare Aguerre, when he visits the specialist land-based university on Wednesday (10 August).

Those lessons include the importance of fostering cost efficient industries resilient to the inevitable price downturns in unstable international markets and committed to reinvesting cash surpluses when prices, and therefore farm incomes are strong.

Minister Aguerre and a party of 24 Uruguayan agricultural industry representatives arrived in New Zealand on Monday for a seven-day Government visit.  The visit follows a successful New Zealand and Lincoln University visit in 2007 by former Uruguayan  President Tabare Vazquez and the then Minister of Agriculture Jose Mujica, who is now President of the country.

Lincoln University has a long association with Uruguay, notably through the work of the late Sir James Stewart, whose name is revered in Uruguayan agricultural circles.

Aims of the 2011 visit to New Zealand include seeing how policy and research results are communicated to farmers and applied and how production intensification has been handled in terms of labour and the environment.

Specific aims for the Lincoln University part of the visit are to learn more about New Zealand’s agricultural value chains, particularly in relation to dairy products and sheep meat; how New Zealand manages price fluctuations; and how the uptake of technology and innovation is encouraged.

The Minister and his party will visit Lincoln University’s commercial demonstration dairy farm, where they will hear from the Executive Director of the South Island Dairying Development Centre, Ron Pellow, Dr Virginia Serra of DairyNZ and Professor Keith Cameron head of Lincoln University’s Centre for Soil and Environmental Research.  In the Council room at the University they will be given presentations on lamb and wool supply chains by Nic Lees of the Faculty of Commerce; on price volatility, finance and technology transfer by Professor Keith Woodford; on the work of the Lincoln University Centre for International Development and its connections with Uruguay by the Centre’s agribusiness theme leader Associate Professor Sandra Martin; on gene marker technology by Associate Professor Jonathan Hickford; and an overview of the University by Vice-Chancellor Professor Roger Field.

Wednesday’s visit to Lincoln University, plus calls at the National Trade Academy and PGG Wrightson (where AgResearch and Plant and Food Research will also be involved), are the sole South Island stops by the Uruguayan group on its New Zealand itinerary.

The visiting party includes senior officials from Uruguay’s Ministry of Foreign Relations and Ministry of Livestock, Agriculture and Fisheries, officials of dairy and sheep industry organisations and representatives of the National Institute for Agricultural Research (INIA).