Robert Hickson • Mar 17, 2021 •
Regenerative agriculture, where the health and wellbeing of the environment, animals and farmers is prioritised, is gaining cachet. I see that as a necessary but insufficient change to how we manage land and watery environments. In some respects discussions about regenerative agriculture are more backward- than forward-looking. Take, for example, the UK’s Food, Farming and … Read More
Robert Hickson • Feb 23, 2021 •
This post is a mix of a few recent reports on trends, recent discoveries or developments. Topics covered are the future of work, the geopolitical shift from oil to semiconductors, transition to low carbon futures, disappearing Artic sea ice, and AI in health care. Yesterday’s Gone A Canadian report from the Brookfield Institute identifies eight megatrends … Read More
Guest Author • Jul 15, 2020 •
Climate Explained is a collaboration between The Conversation, Stuff and the New Zealand Science Media Centre to answer your questions about climate change. If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, please send it to climate.change@stuff.co.nz I would like to know how much difference we could make to our commitment under the Paris Agreement … Read More
Guest Author • Sep 11, 2019 •
Nik Green As a small country that’s far away from most of the world, it’s not surprising that many have worried about New Zealand’s exposure to shocks from things like technology. New Zealand has been hit by many such shocks over its history, although they’ve not always been negative for work or incomes. For many New Zealanders of my … Read More
Robert Hickson • Apr 03, 2019 •
It’s easy to get momentarily excited about robots on the farm, particularly if they are close to home, picking apples or herding stock. Robots have been rolling out onto farms elsewhere for several years and the pace is picking up, so NZ is in … Read More
Robert Hickson • Jul 12, 2018 •
The agricultural sector has long been called a “sunset industry”. If so, it’s more a long drawn out polar twilight than a quick tropical dusk. Rosie Bosworth has written about New Zealand becoming the ‘Detroit of Agriculture’. Scary stuff, for some. A welcome transformation for others, if you read the opinion pieces. But are predictions of the … Read More
Eric Crampton • Jun 08, 2017 •
There’s an important recommendation missing from the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment’s list of things to help endangered birds. It hardly would work for all birds, but it is ridiculous that it is banned for those birds for which it would work. Let people farm them. Roger Beattie has demonstrated that he can successfully raise weka. There would be … Read More
Peter Kerr • Feb 01, 2017 •
Here’s a counter-intuitive notion, that if we’re smart, could allow our ‘analogue’ agricultural systems to thrive in a digital world. But to do so we MUST own our story. My contention is, the more society connects to the cloud, the more we will want to connect to the land. That is, as virtual and artificial becomes ubiquitous and cheaper, the … Read More
Peter Griffin • Dec 07, 2016 •
The last thing I expected to see when I visited Microsoft Research in Seattle last month were lettuces growing under LED lights and fish swimming in a tank as part of an “aquaponics” experiment. It turns out that the small crop installations are part of growing efforts underway at the software giant looking at the future of food. While Microsoft has leafy … Read More
Robert Hickson • Sep 23, 2016 •
Many discussions about the future are about “what?” and “how?” What will … [insert favourite industry or issue here] … look like? How will we … [insert favourite activity] … in the future? The outcomes are usually lists or descriptions. These are fundamentally second order futures questions. They are a consequence of a need for answers in the face of … Read More