Subject Guides: Agriculture and Agribusiness Management: Websites

Websites - General

AgResearch
Develops new technologies and knowledge to the agricultural sector.
AgriHQ
AgriHQ coverage is comprehensive spanning dairy, sheep & beef, forestry and grains. They offer a range of analytical reports, data feeds and a growing range of tools and calculators such as the Farmgate Milk Price Calculator and NZ Milk Production Predictor.
Beef + Lamb New Zealand
A critical resource for animal farmers. Look at their "Farm" tab for a wealth of practical resources.
DairyNZ
For dairy farmers, this critical, frequently-updated resource is a must-visit. Should be really useful for farm management study. Includes information on irrigation and feed budgets.
Environmental Protection Agency
Covers codes of practice for agriculture such as the management of agrichemicals and fumigants
Farmers Weekly
Rated by NZ farmers as number one for market news and information. Also contains information on jobs and property.
Farm News for NZ farmers
A publisher and news aggregator covering farming in New Zealand.
Federated Farmers
A lobby group that represents farmers interests. It has a voluntary membership which stands at over 26,000. They publish many papers, surveys and media releases which can be found here.
Figure.NZ
Find and use statistics about New Zealand, for free. All data is authoritative and shared under Creative Commons Licence.
Landcare Research
An amazing array of local information and research on land resources.
Ministry for Primary Industries
MPI is the government department responsible for helping maximise export opportunities for our primary industries, improve sector productivity, increase sustainable resource use, and protect NZ from biological risk.
Statistics New Zealand - Primary Industries
This contains numerous useful statistics on the distribution and characteristics of the rural population, export figures, the contribution of agriculture to the economy and more.
Worksafe Mahi haumaru Aotearoa
More people are killed in agriculture than any other sector in New Zealand. Worksafe is a dedicated website for farmers to get clear health and safety advice and information. It contains guides, fact sheets, a map of risky areas on a farm and a place to report workplace incidences. (Under the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015 (HSWA) you must notify WorkSafe New Zealand when certain work-related events occur)

Image: Pixabay

Business and Benchmarking

Benchmarking gives you a starting point to measure the success of your farm against others in New Zealand and globally.

Dairy NZ - Business aspects
Resources for Diary from a business perspective
Beef & Lamb's Benchmarking data
Want to know how farms around NZ stack up against some Key Performance Indicators (KPI's)? This data helps you to be sure that your farm is leading the field.
Improving milk quality and profitability - DairyNZ
How to optimize the use of equipment and labour resources that are available.

Employment issues

Federated Farmers: Employment contract builder
Allows you to build, send, negotiate and finalized employment agreements.
Immigration NZ: Settlement resources for employers
Resources to plan recruitment and manage new migrants employee’s arrival into the workforce.
Immigration NZ: working in a NZ farm
Guide for migrants who work or want to work on a New Zealand dairy farm
Dairy NZ and people - employment, finding a job, creating a productive workplace
Provides information on employment maters such as contracts, orientation, accommodation and immigration.

Irrigation

Water use and irrigation are essential to farm sustainability. These resources will help you ensure your farm uses water responsibly.

In this video, from a series by DairyNZ, farmer Tim O'Sullivan outlines the steps his farm has taken towards responsible water use.

Water use (DairyNZ)
DairyNZ take water use seriously, and this page gives excellent resources for evaluating and monitoring water use.
Irrigation NZ Resources
Irrigation NZ's resources page gives plenty of information about irrigation and soil in this interactive page.
Land, Air Water Aotearoa (LAWA)
Some basic data and information about environmental quality, divisible by region.

Feed Budgets

Some areas of farm management are a numbers game, and budgeting is one of those areas. Here are some resources to help you master it.

DairyNZ's feed budgets
If you're dealing with dairy cattle, these simple tools will help you budget for success.
Feed requirements for lactating cows
Lactating cows require different energy inputs according to pasture and breed. Here's how to make the calculations.
Feed values
These tables give estimations of M/D energy values for a variety of feed types.

Māori and agriculture - Ahuwhenua

Ahuwhenua - Māori land and agriculture
An overview from Te Ara Encyclopedia of New Zealand
Maramataka: the Māori Moon Calendar
Research from Lincoln University's Matauranga Māori and Bio Protection Research Team on Māori traditions regarding their ability to foretell appropriate and inappropriate times for food gathering such as the planting and harvesting of crops and the catching of fish according to the moon.
Māori agribusiness
Shows how Ministry of Primary Industries is working with the Māori primary sector. Includes current and completed projects.
Ngai Tahu farming
Information from a Maori perspective on Health and Safety and best practice farming.

Animal Health