Rural delivery: Gene finding shows how to build on our strengths

By ROBIN CAMPBELL*

The Inverdale gene discovery in sheep is significant in many ways. It heralds a new opportunity for farmers to improve the efficiency of their businesses.

From a broader perspective, female mammal gene function affecting fertility in the early stages of egg development has been discovered. There is potential to develop new methods of contraception based upon this knowledge. Opportunities to help solve problems of infertility and even a new approach to pest control are touted as possible developments.

But more than all of this, New Zealand's sheep industry shows its ability to take a place in the knowledge economy. No doubt the Government is at least pleased, if not relieved, at this turn of events.

Those involved in farming would claim that agriculture was knowledge-intensive without such revelations as the Inverdale gene.

They would argue that an agricultural economy harvests sunlight and converts it into plant or animal products that can be sold.

This is possible because of a deep understanding of the soil, the plants that grow on it, the animals which graze it, the preparation of products made available during this process, and the requirements of the markets.

This is the creation of value from understanding, surely the key function of a knowledge economy.

Our challenge is to incorporate ever higher levels of skill into our products. Then those products can demand an ever-increasing return for intellectual property and service features.

There is a temptation to follow another nation's recipe for success rather too closely. We have envied Switzerland, Singapore, Ireland, and now Finland.

We cannot be another Finland. It has taken advantage of the knowledge and techniques it developed to cope with a unique environment.

The country has many isolated pockets of population in an often frozen land. As telecommunications developed, it was logical for Finland to pursue the wireless options.

Out of what they first perceived as a problem, they have built advantage and now lead the world in cellphone technology.

It is the process, not the product, that we should try to copy.

What are the things that our circumstances have forced us to do well? How can we develop and exploit the opportunities this uniqueness confers?

Ours is a resource-based, biological economy. We are isolated from the rest of the world, forced to be creative and innovative.

We lead the world in the management of outdoor, pasture-based animal production. We have high levels of expertise in almost all things agricultural.

Our soils are good, our climate kind. We have developed a suite of agricultural support industries that have themselves evolved into other areas. Agriculture is a great nursery for a wide range of entrepreneurial activity.

There is always a temptation to abandon the old as we reach for the new. But that would be unwise. We can have agriculture and other things, which is a much better option than other things instead of agriculture. Despite progress in many other areas, some of it spectacular, agriculture still underpins our nation's economy.

Physics was the science of the last century, as we learned to harness the energy resources of the world.

Biology will be the science of the current century, as we learn to mimic and use the capabilities of countless other life forms. New Zealand is at least as well-placed to capture advantage in biology as Finland was to capture value in electronics.

The Inverdale gene is the first of several exciting stories we will hear as we add value to the knowledge that underpins our economy.

* Robin Campbell is a Southland stud sheepfarmer, chairman of the Sheep Research Foundation and Agricultural Communicator of the Year.