Meat & Wool to lift regional focus

Meat & Wool New Zealand, which is cutting 23 Wellington head office jobs, promises to focus more on the regions.

The restructuring follows farmers voting in an August referendum to end their compulsory wool levy to the organisation.

Since then, Meat & Wool NZ has been reviewing its activities and has told staff 23 positions will go and seven new ones will be created in Christchurch and Manawatu. The redundancies affect a third of the head office staff, including managers and administrative staff.

This week the organisation will announce what projects will be downsized. Chairman Mike Petersen said there would be cuts around the country, including at research projects and monitor farms. He would not say whether the Nelson monitor farm would continue in its current form.

"A major feature of the new structure will be a much smaller footprint in Wellington and a stronger presence in the regions," Mr Petersen said.

Meat & Wool NZ has six wards and activities would be built around those regions, working with their farmer directors.

"We have been seen by many farmers as a Wellington organisation. We will turn the Wellington office into a support office rather than a head office."

The restructured organisation would have the programme areas of farm, market and people.

Research and development would be included in the farm business unit and there would be increased focus on uptake and delivery, he said.

"More focus on extension will be achieved with the separation of this activity from the farm survey work. The same number of staff will be involved, but they will specialise in either extension or survey work, rather than trying to split their time 50/50 as they do now."

Mr Petersen said feedback during the referendum consultation highlighted that farmers valued the independent information of Meat & Wool NZ's economic service and this had been kept intact in the re-structure process.

"Further discussions are required about the collection and provision of information relating to wool following the loss of the wool levy and these talks are now under way," he said.

The human resources and skills and education activities would be amalgamated to form the "people" programme.

"There will be a far greater focus on our communications with farmers to ensure we stay connected and are providing outcomes that are relevant and add value to their businesses,"Mr Petersen said.

It was envisaged that market development would be delivered through a separate entity, jointly funded and jointly governed with the meat industry.

"The referendum proposed increased industry funding for this activity and the joint entity will be tasked with ensuring this will happen," he said.