Timeline set for Agritech school

New Zealand's first agritechnology educational centre will be established by Wintec at AgResearch's King Country dairy science farm within two years.

The farm, currently the subject of a $6 million conversion from sheep and beef to dairying at Tokanui, will be the source of teaching material for a range of student groups. The centre will service secondary school and tertiary education students as well as farm workers and employers.

Steve Payne, Wintec's project development manager, said the centre had received $1 million funding over three years from the Tertiary Education Commission. The facility would be completely operational by the end of 2010.

Students will be able to work with farm-generated data across environmental sustainability, production systems, waste management technologies and automation and technology, he said. Tertiary and Secondary school students will be able to study science and agriculture in action.

Although it was too early to share many details, since AgResearch's conversion was still under way, Mr Payne said the centre would include about 20 work stations and high speed broadband enabling students to connect from anywhere in the country.

Mr Payne, who is also a business development manager at Innovation Waikato, said Wintec's new bachelor of technology degree would give students an opportunity to specialise in agritechnology.

The Agriculture Industry Training Organisation and the Coalition of 21st Century Schools is among the organisations involved in the project.

Derek Fairweather, the chief executive of Waikato Innovation Park, said the park's role has been to assemble the best-of-breed technology with two key outcomes.

"The first is to create an open environment where we can integrate and prototype emerging agritechnologies and services. The second is to showcase to dairy farmers, both New Zealand and international, the technologies that will deliver future productivity and profitability improvements. Some of these technologies will be about differentiating milk through genotype, feed and treatment regimes," Mr Fairweather said.

Former agricultural scientist and Wintec tutor Clive Dalton spoke of the need for the centre.

"The next generation of farm technicians is going to have to be trained at that level," Dr Dalton said. "There's going to be no more people going onto the farm because they haven't got the brains for anything else. People have got to learn that they are in the food business, not the cow business."

- © Fairfax NZ News