Dave France appointed Project Manager for HB Future Farming Trust

The Trustees are pleased to announce that Dave France has come aboard as project manager to shepherd a number of key project proposals toward Government funding.

Added 3 years ago

The Trustees are pleased to announce that Dave France has come aboard as project manager to shepherd a number of key project proposals toward Government funding.

Trust Chairman John van der Linden notes: “Our Future Farming Trust is aiming high to improve HB farming resilience and environmental and economic performance. This will involve multi-year, multi-million dollar projects to trial and document alternative practices – in partnership with Government, HBRC and industry groups –that will require a dedicated driver to get funded and up and running… and that’s Dave.”

One project, presently before MPI, would involve working with the Mangaone Catchment Group to implement a catchment-wide farm strategy to introduce and measure financially-sustainable alternative practices that improve: water quality & retention/drought resilience, soil retention & health, water & energy use, and overall catchment social well-being. All supported by state-of-the-art farm planning tools and real-time measurement technology, extensive soil sampling and financial analysis.

Another, under development with LandWISE would examine the same ‘alternative/improved approaches’ issues in horticulture, cropping and viticulture settings.

Dave has had his fingers in most aspects of HB farming, growing and exporting (owns his own vineyard, ENZA, Richmond), originally in the meat industry and more recently leading the high-tech business development efforts of Business Hawke’s Bay.

Dave comments: “I am excited to be working with HBFFT and it gives our Hawke’s Bay region the unique opportunity to lead our primary industry with the vision of HBFFT: ‘To make Hawke's Bay farming the pride of our entire community’. These projects aim to provide solid evidence around sustainable and regenerative farming practices, combined with the latest on-farm agritech solutions.”

“Our pastoral, cropping, horticulture and viticulture farmers not only have the opportunity to improve productivity and sustainable returns, but also to improve soil carbon, water quality and energy efficiency in their day to day operations.”

Dave can be reached at:
david@franceandco.nz
021 929 895