Kaitlyn Martin:

Hi, my name is Kaitlyn Martin, and I’m going to be the teaching fellow for Agricultural Innovation. This is a brand-new course at Otago. It’s really designed with climate change, sustainability, and regenerative agriculture and it's a brand-new course, it will involve a range of engaging practices, such as going on field trips and working with industry. It will also bring together a diverse group of academics from across the university.

Emeritus Professor Frank Griffin:

Hi, I’m Frank Griffin. I’m a Mercer’s Professor at the University of Otago, and I am the convener of a new degree course called Agricultural Innovation.

Agricultural Innovation is a completely new degree as part of the Bachelor of Applied Science programme at the University of Otago. It’s important to recognise that it is a Bachelor of Applied Science because the structure of that degree is quite different from other degrees in sciences or humanities. The nature of this degree is that it usually involves a combination of subjects.

Whereas agriculture is the primary component of the degree, we combine it with what we call minor subjects to create three possible degree pathways. One is agriculture plus science, which we call AgriTech. Another is agriculture and the environment, which we call AgriEnv. The third is AgriBiz, which combines commerce and agriculture. This structure is quite different from any other degree at the university, which is usually specialised and concentrates on one subject.

Why Agricultural Innovation? We’ve chosen this name specifically because we don’t want to reproduce existing agricultural degrees in New Zealand. You can go to Massey or Lincoln to do basic courses in agriculture, which are largely focused on the amount of food we can produce from the farm system in New Zealand.

We are taking a quite different approach. Instead of concentrating on how much food we can produce, we are focusing on the quality of the food and how we can manage the unique challenges at the interface between urban society and farmers. Farmers are now being held accountable for a whole lot of issues that impact the environment, various production systems, and ultimately the climate.

We want to introduce innovative, science-based approaches to properly evaluate these areas and ensure that the public are informed.

Agriculture is hugely important in New Zealand—it is our largest industry. The statistics show that over 50% of our economy is built around agriculture, and more than 80% of the food we produce is exported.

Agricultural Innovation is a new approach to managing the science involved in agriculture and understanding how it translates into business and environmental impact. This makes the degree distinct.

We have a lot of strengths at Otago, including a research group of over 60 scientists. The degree is a mixture of topics taken from all the schools on campus and provides a new and innovative approach to agriculture and its study.