Companies Look To Boost Ag Technology Sales In US
April 20th, 2009
NZ’s agricultural equipment and service provider sector is launching a major export push into North America. If successful, it could signal the start of a significant change in agriculture-based exports from basic farm products to higher value intellectual property-based exports. A range of NZ companies are participating in the special “grazing pavilion” at the World Dairy Expo in Madison, Wisconsin this year. Companies travelling to the US for the Expo from September 28 to October 3 include Gallaghers,Tru-Test Limited, Prattley Industries, Woolover and Jobe Valves.
The initiative is being co-ordinated by NZ Agritech Inc. CEO, Colin Kennedy, says the US drive, includes a tour of Cullen Investment’s dairy farm development in Georgia, meetings with key dairy industry players and pasture research scientists at universities in Wisconsin and Georgia. “This is the first time World Dairy has put on a grazing pavilion, which demonstrates a shift in thinking, or at least more openness, to the possibility of doing things differently.” Kennedy adds there are a number of opportunities in the US and this is the first time NZ will concentrate on isolating some of those opportunities.
He says likely candidates for uptake of grazing technology and other NZ agricultural technology includes dairy and beef farmers, NZ investment consortiums in the US and farmers interested in moving their farming operations to adopt a greater area of managed rotational pasture grazing. “It stands to reason that agritech is a significant trade opportunity for NZ because we already have the reputation and world leading industries out of the so called ‘number 8 wire’ industries – that is innovative agriculture companies.”
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