Winner 2012 Deer Industry Photo Award

Winner of this year’s Deer Industry Photo Award is this superb shot ‘Fighting Stags’ taken by Maree Hogg-MacDonald of Bay of Plenty.

Judges commented on the outstanding technical quality, composition and drama and also liked the way the personality of the subjects shone through.

You can read all about the competition – and all of the deer industry news from the recent Deer Industry Conference in Wanaka – in the latest edition of Deer Industry News (54, pdf 2.3 MB).

Entries open for Prime Minister’s Business Scholarships

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Prime Minister John Key has opened the 2012 Prime Minister’s Business Scholarships and is calling for applications from ambitious executives looking to expand their international expertise. The scholarships are designed to build business capability and develop skills, particularly in management and international business leadership.

“As part of growing our economy we need to develop better management skills to get the best out of our workforce. Better managers mean more productive firms,” says the Prime Minister. “Getting access to the best knowledge from the world’s best schools can only benefit our senior executives and the companies to which they return.”

The scholarships give New Zealand’s senior managers, business owners and executives an opportunity to attend world-class learning institutions, and cover 50 per cent of costs associated with studying at an international business school, including course fees, airfares, accommodation, and other costs such as textbooks.

Applications close on 31 July 2012.

For more information go to www.med.govt.nz/scholarships.

Congratulations to the Smiths

Congratulations go to Otago sheep and beef farmers Blair and Jane Smith for winning the national title in the 2012 Ballance Farm Environmental Awards earlier this week.

The Smiths were awarded the Gordon Stephenson Trophy, having been chosen from nine regional supreme winners.

The award is sponsored by Beef and Lamb NZ Ltd (B+LNZ) because of its focus on showcasing farmers working sustainably and caring for the environment, says B+LNZ chief executive Scott Champion.

“This is the second year in a row that sheep and beef farmers have won the national trophy – Grant and Bernie Weller of Southland won it last year and undertook a B+LNZ-supported visit to Europe where they met industry representatives in key markets and had the opportunity to share their farming practices.

“We will be working with Blair and Jane Smith in the months ahead to ensure their great story of farming in an environmentally, economically and socially sustainable way is heard both within and beyond the sector,” says Champion.

Read more about the Smiths and their award here.

Lining up for grass-fed beef in Japan and Korea

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chefs in Japan and Korea have been learning more about New Zealand grass-fed beef from award-winning Christchurch chef Darren Wright.

Beef + Lamb New Zealand (B+LNZ)’s market manager for Japan/Korea, John Hundleby says Wright, who has been in the two countries promoting New Zealand beef to a lineup of influential chefs and media, cooked a range of beef dishes at a number of events. His offerings included beef ravioli made from short-ribs, beef tortellini and tenderloin steaks.

“Since Korean and Japanese people are far more familiar with the cooking qualities of grain-fed beef which is more common in the two markets, a highlight at these events is always the demonstration of how to cook a good grass-fed beef steak.”

Japan and Korea are important markets for New Zealand beef farmers. Japan is New Zealand’s number two beef export market by value, worth NZ$230.7million (season ending 30 September 2011) and Korea is New Zealand’s number three export beef market by value, worth $203.1 million (season ending 30 September 2011).

“Beef + Lamb New Zealand works on behalf of farmers in these markets to introduce consumers to New Zealand grass-fed beef and then to develop a preference for it,” Hundleby says.

“Working with chefs and encouraging them to use our product is an important part of getting more Japanese and Korean people to eat New Zealand beef. Influential media also have a valuable role to play in highlighting the health benefits of grass-fed beef that make it lower in fat and higher in Omega-3s than grain-fed beef.”

International biotechnology conference hosted in Rotorua in September

The world’s agricultural biotechnology leaders are heading to Rotorua  in September to gather for ABIC, the world’s top agbiotech conference, hosted by New Zealand’s biotechnology industry organisation NZBIO with support from its Australian counterpart AusBiotech.

With up to 400 internationally represented delegates and 60 experts expected to attend, including a large delegation from the Asia-Pacific region, the United States and the UK, this is  an opportunity to meet the key players involved in technologies that will fast track the development of affordable bio-based products including bio-fuels.

With the global industrial biotechnology industry set to grow by more than 400 per cent over the next five years, ABIC 2012 organisers say the industry’s potential to revolutionise sectors such as energy and consumer products will be an important topic in Rotorua.

“In those areas, there is a huge flowering of research and business uniting organisations ranging from chemical companies to agbiotech firms and energy providers,” says Elspeth MacRae, general manager manufacturing and bioproducts at crown research institute Scion and a member of the ABIC programme committee.

Among the international leaders confirmed to attend the agricultural biotechnology event is Dr Gunter Festel, the founder of Swiss-based investment firm Festel Capital, which is putting considerable capital into bio-energy projects. Also attending, is Michael Christiansen who heads the China arm of Novozymes, producer of a wide range of bio-solutions, including enzymes suitable for bio-fuel production. Additionally, United States energy crop producer Ceres is sending its chief scientific officer, Dr Richard Flavell.

UK Trade & Investment (UKTI) wants to talk to NZ companies who are seeking collaborations with UK agricultural biotechnology organisations and are interested in investing in Britain.

This is the twelfth ABIC conference.

More information about ABIC can be found at http://www.abic2012.com/ or contact Paul Tuckley, UKTI trade development manager by email [email protected] or phone 09 303 5017, mobile 021 337778.

New blueprint for sustainable beef production

A new blueprint that potentially could be used for sustainable beef production in New Zealand has recently been brought into reality in Brazil and is being trialled in tropical northern Australia. However, its usefulness in temperate zones as a sole certification stamp is being questioned by one sustainability expert.

A group of four cattle ranches in Brazil, Fazenda São Marcelo Ltda, has just been announced as the first to earn Rainforest Alliance certification under a new standard – Standard for Sustainable Cattle Production Systems – developed and first published in July 2010 by the Sustainable Agriculture Network (SAN).

The ranches all met a rigorous set of standards that promote the humane treatment of livestock, the conservation of natural resources and the rights and well-being of workers. The standards were developed by SAN in response to the vast destruction of rainforest that results from cattle farming. IMAFLORA – the SAN representative in Brazil – carried out the certification.

According to Amaldo Eljinsk, chief executive of Grupo JD which manages the enterprise, the standards support the company’s values and management approach, helping it add value to its products, stay ahead of trends and attract buyers.

IMAFLORA is promoting the cattle certification programme in Brazil through its work with other local non-governmental organisations (NGOs, including Amigos da Terra), government agencies and international NGOs (including the National Wildlife Federation).

The current standard covers a summary of the principle of an integrated cattle management system, sustainable range and pasture management, animal welfare, reducing the carbon footprint and additional environmental requirements.

Input from sustainable standards expert Kevin O’Grady of Pinnacle Consulting, in the early stages of the standard, enabled the change of rules to allow the use of natural hormone replacement and de-horning. Since that time, O’Grady, who previously worked in the New Zealand meat industry, has been involved with the development of the standard and its trials in Northern Australia. He has been looking at the feasibility of extending it into temperate regions such as other parts of Australia and New Zealand.

“The way Rainforest Alliance works is that specific clients, such as McDonald’s in the specific case of South America, adopt the standard and suppliers then have to follow it,” he explains.

However, it would take a lot to adapt the standard for temperate zones and some of the issues for tropical farming , like tree cover and protecting livestock from predators, are not relevant, he says.

O’Grady also questions the advantage of this sort of standard for the New Zealand meat industry. “Many customers’ suppliers and investors are looking to independent certification to mitigate reputational risk so it’s not just about meeting a certification requirement for a customer like MacDonald’s.”

Want to find out more? Contact Kevin O’Grady.

 

 

Doing whatever it takes

Adept beef clipOver 400 visits to meat plants here in New Zealand and around the world, up to his elbows and covered in blood and guts, have paid off for Adept clip inventor and managing director Murray Fenton.

Now used widely in meat plants throughout the world, the device reduces or eliminates contamination from gut contents during processing. The clips were first made in the 1970s after a call from a slaughter board supervisor at a local lamb processing plant. In 2009, the company announced that the billionth clip had just rolled off the production line (see Food NZ magazine, June 2009).

Appearing in a video interview alongside three other plastics industry leaders in the latest offering from Leaders Review, Murray says the first plant managers initially didn’t even bother dragging themselves out to see what he was doing. So it was a matter of standing there by himself, getting covered in the worst substances imaginable, stoically applying his new design to the carcases. That was until the the result and the effect on the production process became obvious. “Gustsy! Literally,” says Leaders Review‘s Peter Anich.

“Three out of the four plastics leaders made a point of not calling themselves ‘sales’ folk of any shape when when they started out. In fact, they described how downright awkward about this crucial process they had been. Innovation and product conviction pushed them forward anyway.”

Adept’s website states that of its meat industry products, meet EU and FDA Food-Contact requirements and are compatible with all rendering systems.

View the interviews at Leaders Review – Plastics Industry.

 

 

Big Food attack

We’re keeping an eye on a series of debate-provoking articles appearing in PLoS Medicine, an international open access medical journal on the topic of ‘Big Food’ – essentially the power of big multinational food and beverage companies.

Several articles commissioned by the magazine are scheduled to appear over the next three weeks. The first, entitled Big Food, Food Systems and Global Health and written by series guest editors David Stuckler of Cambridge University and Marion Nestle of New York University, asks ‘Who rules global food systems?’

“By and large it’s Big Food, by which we refer to multinational food and beverage companies with huge and concentrated market power,” they answer, describing the international public health response so far to Big Food as a “failure to act.”

Another article draws parallels between the public relations efforts of some soda drink companies and those used by tobacco product manufacturers, highlighting several ‘Corporate Social Responsibility’ (CSR) campaigns that distract from their products’ health risks.

Stuckler and Nestle’s article focuses on the spread of energy-dense, nutrient poor (EDNP) foods around the globe to which several New Zealand experts have responded.

Get the food industry out of policy making

Dr Gabrielle Jenkin of the Department of Public Health, University of Otago Wellington agrees with the papers and is highlighting key areas where there needs to be urgent action here in New Zealand. This includes the introduction of traffic light labelling on the front of food, getting junk food out of schools, banning junk food marketing to children at least (including sponsorship of sport) and the regulation of food composition (fat, salt and sugar and, where possible, regulate portion sizes).

She also calls to “Get the food industry out of policy making,” adding that health policy is a conflict of interest for much of the food industry.

“We also have the food industry co-opting nutrition experts and commissioning their own research (some of this was presented to the Health Select Committee Inquiry into obesity).”

By framing the issue as ‘unhealthy food’ (EDNP foods), rather than ‘obesity’ you avoid “stigmatising the impact of the obesity frame and its individualising implications. This turns the focus to the real problem … the food industry,” she says.

Develop supportive policy environments

The opposition shown by some food manufacturers to the traffic light-labelling scheme is reminiscent of tobacco manufacturers’ opposition to health warnings and plain packaging, says Professor Janet Hoek of the University of Otago’s Department of Marketing.

“We should develop supportive policy environments that restrain the more rampant marketing activities known to influence people’s choices and, at the same time, introduce measures that help consumers make better food choices. We need first to change the food marketing environment so healthy eating (or unhealthy food avoidance) campaigns can have more effect.

“As Stuckler and Nestle point out in their essay, food manufacturers have a goal of maximising the profit they deliver to their shareholders, so it is unrealistic to expect them to be accountable for public health goals as well as profit goals. The best option is for governments to show leadership, drawn on the available research evidence, restrain the marketing that can be undertaken and provide consumers with information they can actually see and use.”