MPI recognised that Integrated Farm Plans were essential for strengthening New Zealand’s primary industries. Strong Farm Plans would mean improved export quality produce, a stronger sustainability message for global markets, and making it easier for farmers to meet regulatory requirements and identify opportunities to grow their business among other benefits. Additionally, Integrated Farm Plans help farmers achieve international recognition for quality practices through assurance programs like New Zealand’s National Farm Assurance Programme (NZFAP).
Recognizing Beef + Lamb New Zealand’s (B+LNZ) established resources and strong ties with the farming community, MPI knew B+LNZ was a critical partner in this initiative. With MPI’s support, B+LNZ aimed to integrate existing tools and resources into a streamlined solution, making it easier for farmers to create integrated farm plans and implement practical, meaningful changes on their farms. By reconfiguring these resources, B+LNZ sought to equip farmers with clear, actionable steps to create farm plans that would help farmers to ensure the sustainability and profitability of their businesses.
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Integrated Farm Plans are complex and multifaceted, requiring careful consideration of the specific operating context for the farm. Successfully developing these plans takes time and dedication. They are not something that can be completed in one session. So, we set the system up so that farmers could gradually build their knowledge and plans over time, balancing their operational commitments with the need to make progress with the plan.
We also provided clear exemplars and approaches that had been successful in other operations – it wasn’t a case of having to start with a clean slate.
Celebrating success was vital to our strategy, so we incorporated real-world examples and videos of farmers who had successfully completed their Integrated Farm Plans. This demystified the process and built confidence that the plans were not too complex to complete, despite the busy schedules and daily work demands. Our goal was to clearly demonstrate the practical benefits of Integrated Farm Plans, ensuring farmers understood that this initiative was a valuable opportunity to enhance their operations and achieve success behind the gate.
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B+LNZ’s online learning modules have been popular with farmers and use of them is growing over time, showing that farmers and others in the industry see value in them. B+LNZ sees the online learning modules as a key ‘piece in the jigsaw puzzle’ of resources and activities that support farmers to successfully make the changes they want on farm. A series of modules on creating and implementing successful Integrated Farm Plans were therefore something MPI and B+LNZ were keen to have, as IFPs help farmers achieve their goals and meet objectives expected of them.
Since the 9 online learning modules in this project were launched, there have been over 3500 individual sessions. Typically sessions are 12-15 minutes long which shows a high level of engagement. It is too early to identify longer term trends in use of the modules, but already B+LN are seeing more frequent use of these modules than typical. B+LNZ has integrated the modules into other engagement activities around IFPS – they encourage workshop attendees to complete the modules before attending the event, in a ‘flipped classroom’ approach. And relevant modules are linked on topic pages on their website’s ‘Knowledge Hub’ – pages with collections of resources on a given topic, created to help people easily find information or revise their knowledge.