Farm Forestry New ZealandSeptember, 2013
Trees on Farms: Making better use of information resources
The project aims to provide farmers and land managers with better access to existing good quality information about establishing and managing trees.
The project involved three interrelated phases:
- surveying farmers, to establish their information needs relating to tree planting and management, and preferred ways of receiving information
- compiling a database of the very best farm forestry resources, as recommended by expert practitioners
- interviewing rural extension specialists, to learn about current best-practice rural extension.
A key output was a database of recommended resources which has been made available on the NZFFA website. The most novel aspect of the database is the ‘living resources’ section, which comprises many of NZ’s best farm forestry properties, and whose owners are happy to show people around their properties and share their knowledge. The interviews with rural extension specialists provided some pertinent advice on how best to approach technology transfer to farmers. The project also identified some major gaps between the information that farmers need, the information that is available, and the ways this information is delivered at present.
The challenge now is to find ways to build on this project, with the ultimate aim of getting more trees planted on farms.
This MPI Sustainable Farming Fund project was co-funded by Scion and the NZ Farm Forestry Association, and was completed in June 2013.
Contact Harriet Palmer harriet.palmer@paradise.net.nz for more details.
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