Todd Talks By Todd Muller

I recently spoke to an audience about the Primary Growth Partnership and was struck by the overwhelmingly positive effect this is having on our primary industries.

The PGP aims to boost productivity, value and profitability in the primary sector and deliver long-term economic growth and sustainability across primary industries, from producer to consumer.

It achieves this by ensuring government and industry funding for programmes that will have benefit for the primary industries including wool, dairy, fishing and aquaculture, meat, pastoral, beekeeping, forestry, wine, viticulture and horticulture. These programmes are business-led and market-driven innovation programmes to boost productivity and value across the primary industry value chain – from producer to consumer. 

Aspirational programmes

A recent report by the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research shows the PGP could add up to $6.4 billion to New Zealand’s Gross Domestic Product from 2025, with the possibility of a further $4.7 billion if the aspirational stretch of programmes is realised, the innovations are taken up widely, and all the research and development is successful.

Currently, about $750 million government and industry funding has been committed to 21 PGP initiatives. These initiatives range from Precision Seafood Harvesting, High-Performance Manuka Plantations, New Zealand Avocados Go Global and NZ Sheep Industry Transformation with all of these initiatives aiming to deliver premiums for their respective sectors in order to deliver significant additional returns for New Zealand.

Prime example

The PGP is a prime example of how the Ministry for Primary Industries is helping primary industries to reach their maximum potential and to work towards goals like doubling the value of exports by 2025.

Primary growth partnerships allow collaboration between otherwise competing industries on a level that hasn’t been seen before and it gives and industry lead to research and development.

Research and development is vital in this day and age with technological advances fundamentally changing the way we do work and carry out our business, nationwide and across the globe.

Primary Growth Partnerships are important for the productivity and sustainability of our sectors and ensure we develop the innovative products that will have to be produced for the future using cutting edge research.