Client: Pasture Renewal Charitable Trust

Date:  November 2009

Author(s):  Kel Sanderson, Michael Webster

This project was commissioned to determine the size of pasture-based farming in New Zealand and the impact that increasing pasture renewal could potentially have on the national economy.

The report found that the farm gate value of pasture-based products to the New Zealand economy was $10.2 billion in the June 2007 year. The contribution of pasture-based products to GDP, including upstream and downstream effects, equaled $20.5 billion, or 12.1 percent of national GDP. 

We developed a model to calculate the change in farm gate values of increasing the level of pasture renewal in New Zealand. Based on the midpoint of the range of scenarios analysed, total farm gate values could increase by 16 percent to $11.8 billion if pasture renewal was increased. This would lead to an increase in total GDP of $23.7 billion.

To put this into perspective, New Zealand would need to attract an additional 460,000 tourists to generate this level of expenditure for the tourism sector. The potential gains in productivity shown in the report come from implementing a well established, existing process with no significant capital outlay.

This report is available on the pasture renewable charitable trust website here.  There have also been stories run on this report through TVNZ, TV3, Stuff and the Southland Times.

BERL Ref# 4770