\u201cIt is one of the greatest opportunities for utilising poop on farm paddocks as a free, sustainable fertiliser, and effectively halve your fertiliser bill. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s one of those great things for improving soil productivity and productivity on your farm.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Auckland-based company bred and reared eight species of exotic dung beetles at its facility – the only such kind in New Zealand.<\/p>\n
Forgie estimated they had since released millions of beetles onto farms through direct-to-farm sales as well as initiatives undertaken by regional councils and local catchment groups.<\/p>\n
However, with sales declining in recent years, the future of the facility seemed uncertain.<\/p>\n
\u201cSales are really dwindling to a point where we\u2019re critically underfunded now, and there\u2019s a high likelihood we\u2019re not going to survive unless either the government jumps in and uses it as one of its mitigation tools for improving water quality, or farmers get on with ordering beetles.\u201d<\/p>\n
Forgie said there were a variety of factors behind the slowdown in sales, including potentially the cost.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese beetles may be expensive upfront, but for the long-term gain for your farm, you\u2019re saving vast amounts of money and productivity and reduced chemical costs, reduced fertiliser costs.<\/p>\n
\u201cNew Zealand\u2019s a small country, it\u2019s a small economy. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe know statistically 15% of our farmers are the innovative early adopters that will get on with things like this. <\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s another 15% we know that will see what they\u2019re doing, the first 15%, and then they will think, \u2018Well, it\u2019s a good idea, we\u2019ll get on board.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cSo really, I think we\u2019re probably catering for probably 30% of the farming community.\u201d<\/p>\n
Forgie wondered if the market was now at the saturation point, with the self-sustaining beetle colonies taking about 10 years to fully establish themselves on-farm.<\/p>\n
He said if the government were to invest $60 million in supplying farms with beetles over 10 years, it would have massive benefits for the primary sector.<\/p>\n
Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) director of investment programmes and operations Steve Penno said it had invested more than $800,000 in dung beetle research to date.<\/p>\n
\u201cOn balance, the evidence suggests that dung beetles provide positive benefits to pasture, soil quality, and nutrient loss. <\/p>\n
\u201cHowever, they don\u2019t offer a \u2018quick fix\u2019 solution to address water quality, given the time they take to establish. <\/p>\n
\u201cTheir effectiveness also very much depends upon the individual farm situation.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said MPI was open to receiving more dung beetle applications to the Primary Sector Growth Fund.<\/p>\n
– RNZ<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cIt is one of the greatest opportunities for utilising poop on farm paddocks as a free, sustainable fertiliser,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":259549,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[806,1975,115756,17163,6097,149239,3233,25689,68060,111,43,139,69,1118,7192,667,25690,23851],"class_list":["post-259548","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-as","tag-at","tag-beetle","tag-closure","tag-down","tag-dung","tag-farm","tag-gianina","tag-innovations","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-of","tag-risk","tag-sales","tag-schwanecke","tag-slow"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259548","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=259548"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259548\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/259549"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=259548"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=259548"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=259548"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}