Canterbury Plains could lead the way in wheat production in New Zealand

Published May 8, 2023

Tridge summary

New Zealand dairy farmers are being encouraged to grow wheat to achieve self-sufficiency in wheat production, as the country currently imports about 70% of the wheat it uses. An agricultural model has been developed to show that producing up to 700,000 tons of wheat annually could reduce greenhouse gas production and water demand, and insulate the rural economy from global supply chain disruptions. The Canterbury Plains, with its arable soil, could be a key area for wheat production. However, the country faces domestic transport deficiencies and higher costs for growing wheat compared to importing it.

Disclaimer:The above summary was generated by Tridge's proprietary AI model for informational purposes.

Original content

As Canterbury dairy farmers look to diversify land use, adding wheat production could make New Zealand self-sufficient in wheat while reducing greenhouse gas production and water demand. The warm aroma of freshly baked bread is hard to beat. But surprisingly, even though we grow 452,000t of wheat in NZ, we import about 70% of the wheat we use to make our bread from Australia. “NZ was self-sufficient in milling wheat until 30 years ago,” Ivan Lawrie, general manager at the Foundation for Arable Research (FAR) said. If NZ achieves self-sufficiency once again, this could help insulate the rural economy from the disruptions to global supply chains we have seen over the past few years, which have raised concerns around ongoing food security. A new agricultural model developed for the NZ arable farming sector looked at how to achieve this, with funding from the Our Land and Water National Science Challenge. Producing up to 700,000t of wheat is needed annually to cover current shortfalls ...

Source: Farmersweekly