The government has announced it will combine the Primary Growth Partnership (PGP) programme with the Sustainable Farming Fund (SFF) to create one programme. In addition to economic, environmental, social, and cultural benefits, SFF Futures will place even more emphasis on the environment and value to New Zealand. There is also likely to be some targeted funding rounds for projects with specific outcomes such as climate change and the environment.
The PGP programme started in 2009 and since then about $244 million in government funding has been paid to 22 programmes in the primary sector. A review of the programme was undertaken this year at the instigation of the Minister of Agriculture. An NZIER report in 2014 estimated that the overall economic impact from the programme in 2025 will be $11.1 billion per annum, with ongoing benefits. The impact is mainly from increased export earnings or primary sector revenue.
Catalyst has been involved in a number of PGPs and would like to congratulate the Dairy Goat Cooperative for getting their PGP “Caprine Innovations” underway. We worked with DGC to prepare their full business case for “Caprine Innovations”. Typically, a PGP business case is the core document for the contract between PGP and the company. As well as having the higher level overview of the programme and economic returns, it must also have detailed project planning to form the basis of a funding contract. This is something we are very experienced at and we got a lot of satisfaction bringing this all together with DGC.
As well as supporting the Dairy Goat Cooperative, we have been active over the last 18 months with the summer fruit sector in developing their business case. We have previously developed business cases in the avocado, red meat and wool sectors too.
The SFF programme started in 2000, and has provided $150 million to over 1000 projects. Funding has been mainly to smaller applied research projects compared to PGP. We have also assisted a number of sectors with developing and carrying out their SFF programmes.
SFF Futures will not affect current PGP programmes and SFF projects.
Please contact Jane if you are interested in discussing what is required for this new programme.