The Nuffield Farming Scholarship has been awarded to Murray King of Richmond. For more than 40 years New Zealand Nuffield Scholars have been travelling to the United Kingdom and other countries to experience agriculture as others practice it, and it is one of New Zealand's most valuable and prestigious agricultural awards. Recipients have returned with new knowledge and wide contacts and many have become prominent in the farming community and in other walks of New Zealand life. They are, and have been represented in government, on agricultural producer boards and in agricultural organisations, as well as taking leading roles within their communities.
In each case, Nuffield Scholars have acknowledged that a considerable part of their later success has stemmed from the Scholarship and the knowledge, experience, friendships and associations that followed.
"It's a good way of travelling and seeing what else is happening around the world and in other countries. How other farms are operating and looking at some of the issues they are faced with and seeing what is similar, what's different, and looking for new technology and new ways of doing things," Murray King said. "I firmly believe that in this day and age you have to travel more and more to see what's happening out and about, that's really what it means to me."
The scholarship is for six months. The first six weeks are organised with other scholars from New Zealand and Australia and involves two weeks in South East Asia and time in the UK and Europe. Individual study tours later allow the follow up of the networks and contacts, and the continued development of their own subjects of study. Murray's chosen subject was staffing solutions for New Zealand primary industries.
"I now realise that it is a major subject - bigger than I had expected," he said, "I am researching for ideas and looking for ways of growing farming businesses. I am looking at ways of attracting the right people to businesses and to the business of primary industries. We know there is a skill shortage out there, and we can attract more and better people to the industry. We shouldn't be competing with other farmers for staff."
Murray also sees competition coming from other industries such as information technology, and more glamorous types of employment. He feels there is a need to promote the primary industry more positively than in the past. "That perception thing is really a major thing," he added.
"So it's looking at ways of identifying who are the right people, getting them on board, and then retaining them. That may well mean equity sharing or other incentives to actually grow people with your business. Creating a career pathway where they can share some of the risk in your business as well, but also building their own equity at the same time," he explained.
In 1943, Lord Nuffield, maker of motor cars and one of the great philanthropists of modern times, set up the Nuffield Foundation with the sum of ten million pounds.
Originally aimed at social welfare, health services and research, the scope of the Foundation was widened in 1946 to include agriculture. It enabled young British farmers to travel abroad for six months to glean information on farming practices aiming to set British agriculture on its feet again after World War II.
In 1950, the Foundation offered scholarships to farmers from Commonwealth countries to visit the UK with the objective of promoting better understanding between farmers in the Commonwealth countries. The scheme has since been widened to include some EU countries.
The Foundation has always intended that the Scholarships to the UK would, at the right time, be taken over by each individual country. However, they generously continued to fund the New Zealand scheme until 1977.
