Details of how the Invermay campus will be affected by AgResearch's proposal to invest $100 million in facilities and resources over the next four years have not yet been finalised.
The country's largest Crown Research Institute has announced an investment programme that it described as the largest of its kind in New Zealand agricultural science.
It was working with a range of research providers and sector interests to create innovation hubs which it said would enhance collaboration and better link the sector, from academic and research organisations to sector partners and private companies.
When asked for details and the cost of any investment at Invermay, near Mosgiel, chief executive Dr Tom Richardson said specific details had not yet been finalised for each campus.
''Over the next couple of months we will be doing detailed work to confirm the proposed locations for our teams, which will dictate the infrastructure requirements and therefore the level of investment on each campus. Once we have completed that work we will discuss and work through this with our staff first,'' he said.
But in a statement this week, Dr Richardson said the predominant focus at Invermay would be on environmental and farm systems capability.
It was proposed to have a focus on farm systems, environmental science and dairying at its Ruakura campus in Hamilton and much of the beyond-the-farm-gate science was proposed to be at the Grasslands campus in Palmerston North. At Lincoln, it was proposed to concentrate many of AgResearch's on-farm research areas.
The investment programme came at an exciting time in the agricultural sector as it collectively sought to deliver on the potential to grow agri-food and agricultural export earnings to $60 billion by 2025, Dr Richardson said.
The programme would be funded predominantly through the disposal of existing under-utilised assets and would not require any new Government investment.
Concept plans were also unveiled this week for what was described as a ''world-class'' agricultural research and education facility at Lincoln. The Lincoln hub plans and business proposal have been developed by a partnership of Lincoln University, Dairy NZ and Crown Research Institutes AgResearch, Plant and Food Research, and Landcare Research. It was made possible as a result of Lincoln University's need to rebuild its science facilities post-earthquake and AgResearch's decision to upgrade its science facilities.
