Crops 007 – Licensed to Grow; that’s the theme for FAR’s 4th International conference which is set to take place at Riccarton Raceway in July.
The conference is due to kick off on Tuesday 24th July where delegates will be invited to attend a cocktail reception at the Riccarton Raceway Conference Centre in Christchurch.
Two days of conferencing will follow, providing an excellent opportunity for growers, advisors, industry representatives, private and government researchers and overseas visitors an excellent opportunity to increase their knowledge over a broad range of topics, which will be delivered by both leading national and international speakers.
Nick Poole, FAR’s Research Coordinator comments, “The aim of the conference is to provide a forum where current national and international research and initiatives can be presented. In addition, discussion on the future direction of the arable industry will take place. We have allowed for a diverse range of topics to be covered within the conference ranging from seed export, biofuels, supplementary feeding to the dairy industry, protecting our environment, crop agronomy and more. And in order to further the value of the speakers, we have allocated sessions for them to speak out in the field, which will allow more opportunity for open discussions. We are confident that New Zealand growers will leave the conference with some very valuable information which will assist them in improving the economic and environmental performance of their current crop production systems.
Our keynote speaker will be Lindsey J du Toit of Washington State University, USA. Lindsey specialises in the research of epidemiology and management of diseases affecting vegetable seed crops. Lindsey will be joining us for the two days where she will advise growers on the management of foliar disease in vegetable seed crops, as well as offering her expertise on growing quality seed.
Howard Moore of Lanzafuels is an experienced dairy industry executive with 25 years in the business. He entered the venture capital industry when he joined BioPacificVentures in March 2004 as executive director. Howard will be presenting on the viability of converting maize to ethanol in New Zelaand, looking at the current issues the industry faces and highlighting Lanzafuels’ long term plans.
Elizabeth Yeaman of the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority (ECECA) will join Howard, speaking on the subject of the potential for biofuels in New Zealand.
Dr David Wratt of the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA) will also join the ‘protecting our environment’ session where he will share his views on the impact he believes climate change may have on our farming systems. Joining NIWA in 1992, David led the collaborative SALPEX mountain meteorology and river flow research programme. His current activities also include climate change research and consultancy, and international climate change impact assessments. He oversees applied climate services operated from NIWA's Wellington site, and the national co-operative climate observing network. David convenes the Royal Society's New Zealand Climate Committee.
We are also fortunate to have secured Prof. Peter Grace of Queensland University of Technology. Peter has expertise in the area of soil health and will be advising delegates on the secret agents of soil organic matter.
To close the conference we are delighted to have Cameron Bagrie, Chief Economist for the ANZ National Bank. Cameron will be looking at the economic opportunities for arable farming.
Sponsors of the conference include: PGG Wrightson Seeds, National Bank of New Zealand, Midlands Seed Limited, Ballance Agri-nutrients, Syngenta, Bayer CropScience, New Zealand Seedlab, Brown Glassford & Co Ltd, CRT, Agrimedia, CropRight Independen Agronomy and GPS Control Systems. Nick Pyke, FAR’s Chief Executive comments, On behalf of FAR I’d like to extend my thanks to all our sponsors for their continued support. This is extremely important in the running of our conferences and as such, allows us to create a very valuable and motivating conference for New Zealand Growers.”
Conference Details:
24th- 26th July 2007
Riccarton Raceway Conference Centre, Christchurch
For further information, please contact the FAR office on 03 025 6353.