Readers will know we don't always see eye to eye with Rod Oram. However, today we agree with most of the points he is making in the SST about the Government's newly announced "New Zealand Fast Forward" r&d and commercialisation fund. We are very sceptical that this money is going to make the difference the Government claims.
We highlight the following section of Oram's article as we agree with every word
So to be truly transformative, the fund needs to help primary sector producers take two enormous leaps. The first is from being exporters selling New Zealand food around the world to being global businesses invested in development, production and distribution in many countries.
Only then will they be able to compete against low-cost producers overseas, have the scale to capitalise on rising global demand, and have the breadth of international operations needed to commercialise rapidly and profitably research breakthroughs here.
The second leap needed is in science. The vast bulk of our primary sector research has always been focused on ways to achieve more efficient production. That role must continue to ensure commodity farming here remains competitive as long as possible and becomes environmentally sustainable.
But we need to roll those developments out very rapidly into global agriculture to ensure we benefit financially from them and can thus afford to keep investing in the science. If we don't take the technology out to the world through our own businesses, overseas players will adopt it anyway and we will lose much of the economic benefit.
Commercialising their production science internationally will be a huge challenge to Crown Research Institutes and private sector researchers. But they also need to take an even bigger step into the high science of bio-actives, nutraceuticals, bio-pharmaceuticals and other ways of delivering medicinal benefits through food.
This science is still in its infancy but one day it will generate an enormous volume of intellectual property, very high value commercial products and strong competitive advantage.
