The annual report said the number of grants increased by 15%, with 112 applications approved during the year.
The largest portion of new grants was for agribusiness innovation, at $2.2m, or 56% of the total.
AGMARDT’s capital funds returned 8.9% from investment, being slightly lower returns because of uncertainty and disruption in world markets.
Total funds fell from $89m at the start of the year.
However, the well-diversified and conservative investment position adopted by the AGMARDT trustees, increasing the strategic asset allocation at the expense of growth assets, served the trust well.
Funds remained above the upper investment reserve level of $76m and, therefore, trustees committed to maintaining a consistent level of grants at about $4m in the 2017 financial year.
The report mentioned some grant highlights, including the Spring Sheep Dairy market insight research in Taiwan and Korea for developing sheep milk products, NZ Merino placing senior executives in the United States, Farmshed Labs work on FlashMate cow heat detector, 3D printing using wool derived proteins at Otago University, Stock-X’s development of online livestock trading and a grant to Onside for a mobile health and safety management application for rural businesses.
AGMARDT was a principal sponsor of the Te Hono Stanford Bootcamp movement and also jointly funded the Primary Industries Emerging Leaders Scholarship with the Ministry for Primary Industries.
It continued to support the Nuffield and Kellogg joint venture, the Agri-Women’s Development Trust, St Paul’s Collegiate’s agricultural curriculum for secondary schools, Massey University and Food HQ, the Young Farmer Contest and the Young Horticulturalist competition.
“It is our intention to expand in this thought-leadership area by initiating and funding some research on serious issues likely to impact the primary sector and which warrant wider public debate,” AGMARDT chairman Barry Brook said.
Examples of such issues were farming in a low-carbon environment and genetic modification.
