Organic trial at Lincoln

Press, 13 May 1988, Page 19

Organic trial at Lincoln

The go-ahead to develop organic trial blocks at MAFTech’s Lincoln farm is part of. a national thrust by the M.A.F. to develop and promote the production of organically grown food. Restoration lays are being established to enable pasture species to be evaluated for soil structure and fertility restoration. At the same time, optimum sowing times and cultivation techniques will be examined. “The M.A.F. believes an organic direction for NZ

agriculture is vital,” says Mr Kim Stevenson, MAFTech’s regional agronomist at Lincoln. Artificial fertilisers and pesticides had enabled New Zealand farming production to intensify and specialise to a point where New Zealand agricultural systems led the world. Now those systems were coming under close economic and environmental scrutiny, says Mr Stevenson. Producer survival will depend increasingly on this ability to produce

products with low input, low cost farming systems. At the same time, rather than wanting food guaranteed safe because it meets World Health Organisation residue standards, a growing number of consumers want to be assured food is safe because no agricultural chemicals have been used.

Mr Stevenson said that good objective research underpinned all production systems and that organic research was no exception.