We need to be able to produce what those customers want. In the Marketing activity booklet, students learn how products are developed, how they are marketed, and how consumer demand influences what New Zealand produces. Farming is about people and the land. And The Land activity booklet. A New Zealand Timeline provides additional information to support the booklet.
Students carry out an historical investigation of land use and community in their area.
They also investigate what a typical farm, and the community that farm was part of, was like at that time. Sustainable agriculture is about balancing the need to make a profit and run a viable farm with the need to maintain the natural resources like soil and water on which the farm depends - and the need for happy, healthy rural communities. In the Sustainable Agriculture activity booklet, students explore what's needed for sustainable agriculture, and who's involved. A case study explores how one farmer in Taranaki has made his farm sustainable by introducing forestry to parts of it, safeguarding both the land, and his family's future on that farm. The booklets are accompanied by three videos which contain items that support activities in the section booklets, an interactive computer program with its own manual called Stockpol for Schools which teaches students concepts of risk management and day to day farm decision making, a Teacher's Guide with extensive glossary and reference list, and a statistics and current research computer disk.