Options for Rural Investment

What are we doing?E aha ana mātou?

Farmers in Aotearoa are being prompted to diversify their farm systems to make sure their businesses are resilient to the changing climate and extreme weather events, to meet environmental expectations and regulations, and to diversify their income streams.

Farmers need new and innovative financing solutions to help them overcome barriers to diversification by funding land use and capital-intensive land management changes. This project will investigate new solutions to help make this happen.

Diverse ideas will be captured in workshops with participants from a wide range of backgrounds. These ideas will then be screened against case studies and evaluation criteria to identify novel options that could benefit from further research and development.

The research aims to provide a line of sight between the obstacles to land-use change and financing solutions that could overcome them. Two case studies will demonstrate how financing options may be utilised, and their potential impacts. One of the case studies will consider challenges, opportunities, and potential financing solutions from the perspective of whenua Māori landowners and managers.