HortResearch and Crop & Food

The New Zealand Institute for Plant and Food Research Ltd came into official being today, with the conglomeration of the country’s two former crown research bodies HortResearch and Crop & Food Research.

The merger will give the new organisation critical mass in terms of funding, international involvement and personelle, according to the CEO of Plant and Food Research Peter Landon-Lane.

Mr Landon-Lane told Fruitnet today the merger was extremely smooth, with only 20-25 redundancies out of total staff of 900.

“By far the majority of staff and focus of the two organisations was on science, and in hugely complementary areas,” he said.

“It means we have a bigger pool of people to work with, and we’re more easily able to secure the right people for the right job.”

“Our business is science; 70-80 per cent of our staff researchers. We will not close any facilities, and we’re certainly not stopping any projects,” he said.

The merger received strong support from the food industry, according to Mr Landon-Lane, which saw it as a road to a more efficient and successful research body whose predecessors had delivered such boons as the gold kiwifruit.

Plant and Food Research, in keeping with the goals of the previous bodies, will focus on four objectives; breeding programmes, genetic research, sustainable food production, and bio-protection and food health.

“Today was really to get us to the starting line,” exlained Mr Landon-Lane. “Through the balance of the coming year we’re going to make sure we’re delivering on the potential offered by the merger.”

He said the degree of collaboration within the new company’s staff, as demonstrated at a meeting of 40 research scientists last week, was tremendous and represented what the merger was all about.

“The degree of collaboration already starting to happen is very encouraging and a good sign of things to come.”