RMPP - The Ground Up

Workshop attendee feedback
We received a lot of feedback to the survey we sent out after the workshop. Below are a few comments from some participants.

"Make sure it is a true interaction of all involved in the industry and not just farmers. We learn and move forward by good interaction with each other eg. our group regularly meet with our key processing people."

"You have taken on a huge mission and it has taken time to get it up and running."

"With 3 years to go I would like to see the KPI's/benchmarking completed within the next 6-12 months. I think some really good work has been done (NZ Farm Assurance project), time to start rolling out results."

"A successful effective extension programme needs to be demand driven (it needs to be wanted by the farmers). As farmers, we don’t know what we don’t know. The industry has a critical role in leading and developing the right industry culture and the opportunities for continual improvement. Then the farmers have to want to receive the opportunities and the information."

"We thoroughly enjoyed being away for 2 days - away from work, kids and commitments, it cleared our heads and helped us focus on what is really important to our farming life and business. We've come home with a renewed energy and more proactive attitude."

Farm and technical insights

As part of the two days in Christchurch there were a number of farmers and rural professionals who presented on various topics. Some of these were filmed and we are currently looking to turn these into resources which will be available for people to view. We will keep you updated as to when these will be made publicly available. Some presentations that were in Powerpoint are available here to download.

Programme rollout

The largest challenge for the RMPP team has been taking away all of the ideas from the workshop and turning these ideas into an action plan so that we can start looking to roll out the new programme nationally. This plan is currently being formulated and we will be keeping everyone up to date as we start to pull together the detail. Farming businesses who are interested in being involved can now register their interest on our website here.

We will keep in touch with those who have registered as we confirm what the programme involves.

Computer Courses
Want to know more about how to use a computer to help your farm business? 2017 dates have now been confirmed for the next set of computer courses RMPP are offering. There are two courses that farmers can choose from.

Getting Started
Topics covered include how to use email and the internet.
Using Farm Data
Topics covered include an introduction to spreadsheets (Excel) and an overview of some farm management tools.

For more information on either of these courses click here.

Understanding Your Farming Business Programme
There are still a couple of places available on the Understanding Your Farming Business programmes due to start in both Te Akau and Paeroa in May. If you know of any women who may be interested in being a part of the programme, please pass on the details to them. Click here for more information.

Farmer mentor programme
RMPP and DairyNZ fund a programme which works with Business Mentors NZ to support farm owners, farm managers and those looking to start up a farming business. We can provide a fully subsidised confidential one-on-one mentoring approach. For more information click here.