Leftfield Innovation Ltd. (“LFI”) has partnered with a leading vegetable producer to explore new opportunities related to vegetable cropping, particularly in regard to creating more diversified and sustainable land use.
The early success of this work includes new crops in rotations being defined in long-established cropping regions, which aid in managing soils while increasing overall yield, and identifying some new crops in other markets that help diversify the production portfolio. Furthermore, we have recommended strategies to help mitigate the impacts of climate change, such as extreme weather events as well as projected longer term changes.
One of the outcomes of this programme has been finding a new high-yielding region for a staple crop that will help improve New Zealand’s food security, with the first larger-scale crops to be grown this year following the success of a first-year trial harvest.
As a result of this successful partnership, LFI is expecting the work to expand into other regions and across a broader range of vegetable and non-vegetable crops.
Due to the commercial sensitivity of this programme further details cannot be shared publicly at this stage.