Who We Are

Future Farmers New Zealand is a collection of young kiwis passionate about ahuwhenua and the principles of kaitiakitanga. We are farmers, students, and urbanites, all passionate about the opportunities for the planet and the people that come from New Zealand’s food and fibre.

Our aim is to discuss and inform beliefs, principles, and policies to shape the future of New Zealand food and fibre based on our continuously evolving Manifesto.

Impartiality Statement

Future Farmers pride ourselves on creating a safe space for discussion, being strongly non partisan and impartial. Therefore it is important we are upfront about our potential biases; while we do have members who vote for a variety of political parties, not all may be represented (‘minority’ parties in particular).

That said, we would love to have members of the food and fibre community from any political position come join us. Being a group with more of an advocacy focus, we have attracted a membership that is weighted more towards those who are involved in science, industry and policy. We have some day-to-day farmers in the group but this currently isn’t as high as we would like so we are actively working to grow our membership base of on the ground farmers alongside our other members. We believe our diversity and critical thinking puts us in a strong position to advocate on behalf of young people for change in the sector and are committed to utmost transparency about our own decision making process and any potential biases.

We would love to welcome anyone involved in the sector, farmers and all individuals alike who are keen to work toward a united, healthy, and prosperous future.

How Our Manifesto Works

We have subdivided our manifesto to encompass 7 key themes that we believe are essential to creating a healthy future for New Zealand farming.

For each section, we describe the vision we have for the future, what future outcomes could look like, and how we can get there. Each section is concluded with some key recommendations.

You may notice that our key themes for the future of farming do not include the usual physical components such as climate, biodiversity, water, soil and human health. This is because  we see the degradation of these core components of nature to be inherently multi-disciplinary issues. As a result, they are woven across each of the 7 themes. The regeneration of these elements is non-exclusive as they are innate to a healthy agri-food system, and therefore it makes sense to treat them as such when envisioning the future. 

Disclaimer - This is a living document and will be constantly updated, subject to consultation and the evolution of ideas.