RaboTalk – Growing our future

In this RaboTalk, Growing Our Future episode, Blake Holgate sits down with experienced governance leader, current AgriZeroNZ Chair, former Silver Fern Farms Chair and sixth-generation South Otago farmer Rob Hewett to discuss what resilient, future-focused farming looks like inside the farm gate.
Drawing on his farming background alongside his senior executive roles at Shell and directorships across major agribusinesses, Rob shares practical insights on applying boardroom discipline to farm decision-making, matching land classes to their highest-value use, managing market and climate risk, and positioning New Zealand’s premium protein for discerning global consumers.
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Show Notes
Applying Governance Principles to the Farm Floor
Rob outlines how farm-level governance centres on systematic risk management. Whether evaluating weather cycles, interest rate movements, or debt structures, farmers constantly implement risk mitigation strategies. Moving toward a formal governance structure helps producers evaluate their balance sheet capacity, make deliberate capital allocation choices, and run their properties with boardroom discipline.
Aligning Land Class with Highest Value Use
Successful long-term planning requires assessing each land class across a property to determine its highest and best use. Rob shares his simple farm philosophy: setting up efficient paddock and lane layouts while establishing trees on country that is too steep for tractors. Balancing hill-country forestry, carbon, wind generation, and intensive livestock systems diversifies income and optimises overall land utility.
Serving the Discerning Protein Consumer
Rob highlights the stark efficiency gap between poultry and sheep production. A single hen can yield 400 kilograms of meat per year, whereas a high-performing ewe produces roughly 25 kilograms. Because New Zealand red meat cannot compete as a low-cost, high-volume commodity, producers must treat it as a premium product. Farm practices around emissions, animal welfare, and water quality must align directly with the expectations of high-end international consumers.
Mitigating Climate Risk Through Integrated Feed Systems
To build drought resilience and protect soil structure during wet southern winters, Rob implemented a fodder beet and Raphno forage system paired with a techno-finishing design. By moving small cattle mobs across rotational grazing wedges, the farm achieves high feed utilisation and finishes all cattle by 18 months. This eliminates the expense and land impact of carrying stock through a second winter.
Unlocking Precision Productivity with Smart Tech
Agri-tech provides substantial bottom-line gains when paired with clear operational goals. Rob highlights how utilising smart shepherd collaring systems on 7,000 ewes tracks individual mother-to-lamb relationships as accurately as a DNA test. By measuring actual lambing performance through to weaning, the farm achieved a 15% compounding growth rate between its elite and commercial flocks.
Final Advice: The Process Drives Execution
Rob shares a central governance rule for every business owner: the process of reaching an end result is just as important as the result itself. High-value strategies fail without total buy-in. To execute plans effectively, particularly during intergenerational farm succession, business leaders must actively communicate, listen to new ideas, and build genuine engagement with everyone involved.

In this third episode, of RaboTalk Growing our Future’s Catchment Catch-Ups series Blake Holgate speaks with Craig Simpson, Regional Manager at the Otago Catchment Community (OCC). Craig shares insights from his extensive background in water quality research and collaborative governance, reflecting on how the regional catchment movement has grown over the last twelve years.
The conversation highlights how OCC supports 28 independent, farmer-led groups across Otago to navigate evolving regional water plans and shifting environmental priorities. Craig discusses the practical realities of managing long-term landscape changes, explaining why structural governance, community independence, and targeted coordinator support are essential for sustaining momentum and preventing volunteer burnout.
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Show notes:
Collaborative Governance in Action
Craig's entry into the sector began with masters research focused on managing water quality through collaborative governance, which led to his work with the New Zealand Landcare Trust. This background shapes OCC's mandate to act as an enabler for collective action, helping local communities identify shared environmental problems and design their own solutions.
The Evolution of the Otago Movement
The OCC movement grew out of annual networking forums designed to bring catchment leaders together to share ideas. By 2021, as groups sought more structured resources and direction, OCC formalised into a support organisation. Today, the collective assists 28 independent groups, offering technical training, strategic planning, and administrative funding.
Shifting Water Plan Drivers
Many of Otago's oldest catchment groups, including the Pomahaka initiative, originally formed twelve years ago to address strict discharge thresholds in the regional water plan. While those regulatory drivers have changed, the cumulative learning has led to massive shifts in land use practices, establishing thriving wetlands and planting projects that will benefit the landscape for decades.
Managing the Ebb and Flow of Engagement
Sustaining high enthusiasm indefinitely is unrealistic and often leads to volunteer burnout. Craig notes that it is completely healthy for catchment groups to experience cycles of high activity followed by quiet consolidation. The critical factor is keeping the core group structure and work plan alive so they are raring to go when new environmental or community drivers emerge.
Overcoming Succession and Fatigue Challenges
Catchment committees are frequently run by the same individuals who volunteer for local school boards or sports clubs. To manage this fatigue and ensure long-term succession, OCC focuses on ensuring groups maintain clear visions and action plans. Introducing independent coordinators to absorb administrative burdens has proven to be a game changer for maintaining continuity.
Valuing Catchment Individuality
Craig firmly believes that catchment groups cannot be treated as carbon copies of one another. Each community has unique geographic challenges, economic drivers, and social dynamics. Long-term success relies entirely on external organisations respecting and protecting the independence of these local groups rather than forcing a standardised template upon them.
Final Advice: Plant the First Plant
Craig uses a planting project analogy to encourage communities facing long-term environmental goals. While the upfront work of putting a plant in the ground is simple, the unglamorous, slow-brew maintenance is what ensures survival. Producers should not let the scale of a challenge prevent them from starting. If you never plant that first plant, you will never be able to look back in five years and see a thriving landscape.

In this episode of RaboTalk, Growing Our Future, Blake Holgate talks with Matt Highway, Chief Executive of the New Zealand Association of Resource Management (NZARM) who shares practical advice on managing environmental challenges without getting caught up in changing regulations. He explains why focusing on outcomes, tackling your biggest on-farm risks, and connecting with local catchment groups can deliver better results for both the environment and your bottom line.
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Show notes:
In this episode, Blake speaks with Matt Highway, Chief Executive of the New Zealand Association of Resource Management (NZARM), to explore sector capability and strategic land management. With over 25 years of experience across regional councils, the dairy sector, and industry consultancy, Matt highlights how the profession has evolved from its early roots in soil conservation to a modern focus on integrated catchment management and neutral, nature-based business solutions.
The conversation focuses on how land managers can navigate regulatory uncertainty by concentrating entirely on environmental outcomes rather than changing compliance policies. By identifying on-farm risks and leveraging collective community frameworks, Matt explains how farmers can utilise emerging technologies and localised networks to make pragmatic decisions that protect both their landscapes and their business profitability.
Discussion Topics
Building Sector Capability
Established in 1953, NZARM has shifted its modern strategy away from political advocacy to focus completely on capability building and professional connection. Matt highlights their collaborative capability project, which features an online skill mapping database that allows land professionals, catchment coordinators, and organisations to track environmental skill sets and connect expertise across regions.
Accessing Cheap Data over Silver Bullets
While technological advancements like AI and weekly satellite passes provide massive, low-cost datasets, the primary challenge remains applying these tools practically on the ground. Matt warns against chasing silver bullets, explaining that popular edge of field widgets like constructive wetlands and detention bunds must be deployed selectively within the right landscape context to avoid major financial inefficiencies.
A Structured Approach to Farm Risk
When farmers look to step up their environmental performance, Matt advises them to treat the process like managing financial risk. Landowners should systematically evaluate which areas of their property are most vulnerable to flooding, drought, or critical source area runoff. Prioritising action means choosing the single biggest risk that can be mitigated for the lowest relative investment cost.
Context-Driven Measuring and Monitoring
Water quality testing is a slow brew that can take five years to deliver meaningful trends. Rather than taking on heavy individual monitoring costs, producers should ensure their farm plans align with their wider catchment context. If a downstream lake is driven by phosphorus, targeted investments on the farm floor should address that specific asset rather than tracking irrelevant metrics.
Outcomes Over Policy Announcements
Although environmental regulations have experienced significant political shifts, the fundamental goals of land management have not changed. Healthy soils, clean drinking water, and profitable businesses remain the constant baseline. By scenario testing strategies against these permanent objectives, farmers can insulate their operations against future policy cycles.
The Power of Catchment Collectives
Reflecting on regional networks, Matt notes that effective land management relies far more on community cohesion than on pure science. Regionally focused catchment collectives have grown into powerful, supportive entities that build vast local databases. These groups provide a safe space for peer learning, channel funding, and serve as a collective voice for isolated producers.
Final Advice: Connect for a Higher Return
Matt encourages farmers to look past technological widgets over the next twelve months and focus entirely on connecting with their local catchment group. Joining a collective offers a high return on investment by providing direct access to shared expertise, plant funding, and regulatory updates. Aligning with a community framework allows producers to target exciting, tangible goals, like restoring local native species, while naturally fulfilling their wider environmental obligations.

In this second episode of RaboTalk Growing our Future’s new Catchment Catch-Ups series, host Blake Holgate speaks with Alexis Wadworth a central Southland farmer and director for both Thriving Southland and Catchment Communities Aotearoa.
Their conversation focuses on how the Makarewa Headwaters Catchment Group shifted from a baseline study of water quality to tackling a massive wild pest problem. Alexis shares the economic and environmental realities of managing over 7,500 wild deer and pigs across their 42,000 hectare catchment, demonstrating how robust, farmer-led data can open doors to funding, attracting expert advice and engaging government agencies.
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Show notes:
The Makarewa Headwaters Origin
Formed in 2019 during a period of intense regulatory pressure around winter grazing and water quality, the group began as a way for local farmers to band together and clear the muddy waters of compliance. Supported by Thriving Southland, their core objective has always been to leave a swimmable, drinkable waterway that future generations can be proud of.
Overcoming the Administrative Burden
Alexis highlights that asking busy, volunteer farmers to run community organisations is a major hurdle. Accessing dedicated support, like a catchment coordinator from Thriving Southland, is fundamental. It removes the administrative weight, allowing farmers to focus on strategic direction rather than getting bogged down in the day-to-day paperwork.
The Shift to Pest Management
While the group started with water quality science through their LUCI-Ag project, testing quickly revealed a surprising risk: the degradation of the native bush at the headwaters. In 2023, they launched a revival project to understand, control, and monitor the severe pressure caused by wild deer and pigs.
The 2 Million Dollar Annual Cost
A comprehensive survey combining farmer feedback, ecological assessments, and aerial thermal imaging revealed over 7,500 wild animals living in the surveyed area. Alexis notes the economic impact was calculated at over 2 million dollars annually due to destroyed winter crops, pasture rooting, weed tracking, and the fact that the pest population consumed enough feed to carry an additional 5,000 ewes.
Exclusion Plots and Regina Generation
To combat the snowballing pest numbers, landowners are working with commercial venison harvesters and opening gates to recreational hunters. To measure the exact impact of these efforts, the group is establishing 10 exclusion plots across varying forest canopies to see how quickly the forest floor can regenerate when all browsing pests are removed.

The Power of Ground-Up Data
Alexis admits that taking time to study and package a formal report went against the farming instinct to just get out and do the doing. However, having a polished, fact-based document has been an absolute game changer for unlocking funding, attracting expert advice, and engaging government agencies.
Final Advice: Voice Your Hesitations
Alexis encourages anyone sitting on the fence to get involved. If you have reservations about time or direction, those exact hesitations are what the group needs to hear to shape its focus. Progress is rarely linear when driven from the ground up, but the shared knowledge gained along the way is just as valuable as the end goal.

In this episode of RaboTalk Growing our Future episode, host Blake Holgate speaks with Suzie Greenhalgh, Project Lead for the Moving the Middle programme, a research project aimed at giving farmers the confidence to voluntarily improve their environmental performance on farms.
Suzie discusses the findings from this multi-partner research project, which launched in 2020, to understand how to support the large group of farmers in the middle, who sit between the early adopters and those resistant to change.
By analysing the complex network of pressures surrounding farmers, Suzie explains how industry bodies and policy makers can adjust their approach to support farmers and growers who want to make positive change but often feel constrained by competing pressures.
Suzie challenges farmers to identify one positive environmental action they would not regret doing even if compliance rules changed tomorrow.
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Show Notes
The Moving the Middle Concept
The program aims to give the majority of farmers the confidence to voluntarily improve their environmental performance. Suzie explains that many producers want to make positive changes but feel disempowered by competing industry pressures. The research focuses on how to intervene in the surrounding system to give farmers the headspace needed to move forward.

A Systems Approach to Change
Launched during high regulatory uncertainty in 2020, the program covers four deep pressure points identified by farmers: policy interventions, debt and investment practices, trusted agents of change, and community narratives. An overarching systems piece ensures researchers capture how these distinct areas intersect to impact daily decision making.

Moving Beyond Cookie-Cutter Extension
New Zealand has a habit of over-relying on single extension models, like flooding the sector with demonstration field days when they become popular. Suzie emphasises that a practice that is simple for one farm system can be incredibly difficult for another. Extension must be tailored to a farmer’s specific context rather than assuming non-adoption is simply a lack of willingness.

Insights from Māori Agribusiness
The research highlights that Māori agribusiness cannot be treated as a single block. By mapping the distinct stages of the journey from emerging to thriving, the program identifies the exact resources needed at different times. Collaborative work on 100-year farm plans demonstrated how long-term thinking completely shifts short-term operational decisions.

Shallow vs. Deep System Levers
The sector naturally defaults to shallow system interventions, like tweaking an advisory tool, because they offer quick wins. However, transformational change happens deeper in the system. The program works with schools, next-generation change makers, and banks to develop deep levers, such as cheap loans for on-farm environmental trials.

Shifting from Policy to Farmer-Led Action
Looking ahead, Suzie envisions a sector where environmental progress is driven entirely by farmers rather than policy. For this to happen, technology providers and researchers must ensure new innovations actually fit existing farm systems, rather than blaming producers when uptake is slow.

Final Advice: Make No-Regrets Decisions
Suzie challenges farmers to step back from the daily operational noise and give themselves the luxury of long-term planning. To regain agency in an uncertain regulatory environment, producers should identify one positive environmental action that they would not regret doing even if compliance rules changed tomorrow. Starting with a single, secure choice is the best way to build lasting confidence.