New Zealand’s Agriculture Minister Damien O’Connor said the government’s One Billion Trees Fund is available to help farmers integrate trees onto their properties, and diversify their income while looking after the environment.

Established in 2018, the One Billion Trees Fund offers abour $240 million in grants and funding to landowners, organisations, and communities who want to plant trees, revert land to native forest or improve they way one grows and plants trees.

The government’s “One Billion Trees Fund” aims to provide flexible funding to help plant the right tree, in the right place, for the right purpose.

New Zealand’s Agriculture Minister Damien O’Connor launched a website – ‘Opportunity Grows Here’ and a marketing campaign to attract 10,000 New Zealanders into food and fibre jobs over four years.

“Our primary sector is a huge part of our economy and our brand and it’s going to play a big role in our economic recovery,” Damien O’Connor said.

The minister added that the primary sector brings tens of billions of dollars to the New Zealand economy every year, but more Kiwi workers are needed to support its growth. The government wants to redeploy recently unemployed Kiwis to help fill the gap.

New Zealand’s Economic Development Minister Phil Twyford and Agriculture Minister Damien O’Connor an industry plan in order to grow the country’s agritech sector.

“We want to grow a cluster of large agritech firms that can take on the world, and build on New Zealand’s agricultural strength,” Phil Twyford said.

The agritech sector would benefit from the government investment including $11.4 million direct investment in implementing the Agritech Industry Transformation Plan, a share of $84 million of Sustainable Food & Fibre Futures funding brought forward to boost innovation and the support from the government’s agritech taskforce and existing government programmes.