2011 Nuffield scholars to investigate Asian markets and environmental challenges facing agriculture
Thursday 21 October 2010, 6:41PM
By Federated Farmers of New Zealand
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Two Scholars will benefit from the 2011 Nuffield Farming Scholarship Trust, announced at a function held in Wellington on Tuesday night. This function was attended by representatives of the organisations that fund the New Zealand Nuffield Scholars and other industry leaders.
The two 2011 Nuffield Farming Scholarship Trust Scholars are David Campbell from Darfield and Nicola Waugh from Hamilton.
David Campbell is currently Livestock Productivity Manager and Project Leader ‘Special Milks’ for Synlait Farms Limited in Canterbury. Originally trained as a veterinarian at Massey University, in 2006, David decided on a career change to become more hands-on in the dairy industry, working for Robindale Dairies Ltd as Livestock Productivity Manager.
David proposes to study how New Zealand agriculture can best position itself to take maximum advantage of the continued export growth opportunity that Asian markets present. Whilst from a dairy background, this topic has relevance to all sectors of New Zealand food production.
Nicola Waugh is another graduate of Massey University. She is currently employed by AgFirst Waikato Ltd as an agricultural consultant. Nicola says New Zealand agriculture is currently going through a period of volatility and change in a number of different aspects of the business including financial, climatic and environmental, “the research in which I am interested in carrying out, focuses predominantly on the environmental challenge, whilst taking in to account financial and climatic volatility”. This is a topical area in food production as we strive to produce what the consumer wants within the constraints placed on the productive base by the environment we live in.
The New Zealand Nuffield Farming Scholarship Trust offers these scholarships, worth $35,000, to motivate people from the New Zealand Agricultural sector who have a willingness to learn and a strong desire to take on rural leadership opportunities.
Funding for the New Zealand Nuffield Farming Scholarships Trust, comes from the rural sector with contributions from DairyNZ, Mackenzie Charitable Trust, Beef+Lamb NZ, Landcorp, Foundation for Arable Research, HortNZ and Federated Farmers.