More than 70 year 11 North Otago students from all three secondary schools spent their Wednesday (March 22) out amongst the farming community.

It was the first time the agriculture students from Waitaki Boys’ and Waitaki Girls’ high schools, and St Kevin’s College had come together for the North Otago Sustainable Land Management (NOSLaM) land use field trip, which had run for two years, followed by a two-year hiatus, due to Covid.



The group visited three different farming operations, preceded by a visit to the North Otago Irrigation Company (NOIC) pump station, at Borton’s Pond.

The day was a great example of the job opportunities in agriculture, NOSLaM engagement officer Nicola Neal said.

“In terms of what farmers are doing in North Otago to utilise the land in a really sustainable way, but also utilise technology as well.”

The students had been “blown away” by the technology, and the vertical integration going on in farming.

“So actually being in control of your product right from the ground up,” she said. 

“Right from when you are growing it, making sure the soil is in the right condition, making sure you’re utilising irrigation in the most efficient way, right through to the end consumer.” 

The visit to NOIC pump station one, at Borton's Pond, showed the “mind-blowing” technology used to deliver water to the region, before the group went to listen to Peter and Henry Mitchell talk about their crop farm, and then headed to Nick and Kate Webster’s dairy operation near Enfield, with lunch provided there by BX Foods.

The day concluded with sheep and beef farmers Grant and Charlotte McNaughton.

Seeing how the NOIC site operated, and then visiting farms which all utilised the irrigation “in a really sustainable way”, was invaluable, Nicola said.

“That has become such a great asset for the whole of North Otago - whether you’ve got irrigation water or not.

“It’s grown technology, it’s grown jobs, it’s grown the economy, and it’s really helped communities thrive.” 

Peter and Henry Mitchell are the fifth and sixth generation on the crop farm, and Peter said the more farmers could do to steer young people towards a career in agriculture, the better.

“There are so many cool jobs linked to agriculture. I just think the agricultural industry is keen for skilled and passionate people.” 

“At the end of the day, we all need food. We all need it produced economically, socially and environmentally really. So you’ve got to start at the bottom.”

It was important to be positive about the industry, instead of focussing on the negative, he said.

“We’ve got to be excited about things . . . When things are tough, people tend to focus on the negative things, so we’ve got to look at the good stuff and try and be as uplifting and as passionate as possible.

“And it’s the young people’s future that we’re talking about, so they need to be involved.”

The experienced people need to look at the younger people, and the younger people need to look at the experienced people, he said.

Henry had returned to the family farm in 2019 after studying at Lincoln University, working in the industry in the United States, and then working locally on another farm for a couple of years.

“There’s plenty of opportunities for agriculture to take you around the world, if you want it to,” he said.

Dairy farmer Nick Webster talks to the students about his dairy farming operation. PHOTO: Supplied

The pair talked to the students about bringing animals on to the farm, to help with soil quality and “keep the biodiversity alive”. He spoke about the crops they grew on the farm - and how that was connected to the other part of the family business, small animal food company Topflite.

“We grow the birdseed, we do hay, canary seed and sunflowers,” Peter said.

“[Topflite’s] quite big - we employ 35-odd people now, mainly in Oamaru, but some over the country, selling and manufacturing products, and all that is because stuff’s grown on the land.”

He then spoke on the technology they used - how soil testing helped discover where nutrients were needed in the soil, and where they weren’t.

“The philosophy there being we’re only putting fertiliser where it’s needed, and where the plants are going to use it.” 

Last year they also started using cameras which sat on the tractor, facing the crop and assessing it as it drove along.

“All the algorithms and software in the computer then tells the fert spreader, ‘this part needs more fertiliser, and this part needs less’, so it’s variable rate nitrogen, which is probably the holy grail of farming.

“It means we’re more efficient using the nitrogen, which means if we’re just putting the right amount in the right place at the right time . . . then we’re not overloading the environment in a negative fashion.”

They also used electromagnetic soil mapping, which measured how light or heavy the soil was, and how much water each soil-type could hold.

“So then you can do variable rate irrigation, so you can put more or less water on different areas depending on its water-holding capacity. 

“If we were just applying irrigation as a blanket cover, then you’re over-watering some and under-watering others.” 

NOSLaM had a real vision of North Otago as an “agricultural hub”, committee member Jane Smith

“So we’ve got Fraser Farm at Waitaki Boys’, we’ve got a real agribusiness focus at Waitaki Girls’, and the same thing at St Kevin’s. 

“So just for North Otago to be working together, with all three schools, that’s really powerful and that’s what we see our job as, at NOSLaM.”