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Faculty fight deepens: Farm Management fights for survival at Lincoln University as the Commerce Faculty cuts its staff

Rural News
Faculty fight deepens: Farm Management fights for survival at Lincoln University as the Commerce Faculty cuts its staff

Previous concerns as to the direction of agricultural education  at Lincoln University have now come to a head, with a major staff restructure.

The Farm Management Group have passed a vote of no confidence in the Senior Management of the Faculty of Commerce who have reprioritised course direction.

These decision makers have little background in grass roots agriculture and have no understanding of the importance of farm management in rural education.

The spin doctors from the Vice Chancellor's Office have glossed over staff leaving, by citing most went through voluntary redundancies but the issue lies in the  disestablishment of positions and how the existing  staff will handle the increased workloads and retain a quality service for the students.

Lincoln has been going through some fairly major restructuring to balance the books to get onside with the Government regarding the rebuilding programme. Most agree that some rationalisation needed to happen especially with courses where this institution has little competitive advantage.

Given that Agriculture numbers have been increasing (particularly in Farm Management) and numbers in non-ag programmes collapsing, AgMgmt and AgriBus were feeling relatively secure in their position within Lincoln. However, they were sorely mistaken and Ag Mgmt has born the brunt of the job cuts within the Commerce Faculty.
 
Papers like MGMT 316, 317 and 318 have numbers around the 120 now with the 200 level Ag Mgmt papers approaching 200.
 
First year enrolments in the Farm Management Department are approx 160, while Commerce is 66 with some Commerce programmes receiving 0 or single figure first year enrolments. This is where the insanity begins and can only be seen as a grab for  students by generic commerce, who I believe have only lost one staff member and plan to pillage parts of the farm management courses and teach with personnel with little agricultural expertise.
 
The Farm Management Department  have lost a Professor, an Assoc Prof , a  Senior Lecturer Hort Mgmt, a Senior Lecturer Ag Mgmt, a Senior Lecturer Ag Engineering and a OneFarm Researcher. Other than the Professor these positions are not being replaced,  and existing staff are expected to pick up these additional papers.
 
These losses make up over 40% of the existing Ag Mgmt staff and will effectively put all Ag Mgmt and AgrBus post grad programmes, and the Dip Ag and Dip Ag Farm Mgmt at risk, while undermining the ability to offer the same inputs into the B Com Ag and other Ag degrees.
 
These courses are the strength of the University and NZ has been well served by graduates who have filled jobs in all positions of responsibility in agriculture.
 
The result of these proposals after a very flawed consultation process where staff submissions appear to be totally disregarded has seen a vote of no confidence in the Senior Management of the Faculty of Commerce.
 
It appears confidence has been lost in senior management by staff  as to the future direction of Lincoln University, and all alumni and participants in agriculture should voice their concern to the Council and politicians as to where this is all heading.

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2 Comments

I'm not surprised they're trying to close down Lincoln.

With the new Fonterra regs for _this_ season, they're trying to drive the agricultural sector from behind a desk.

No thanks.

Has never worked in the past.  And I'm not putting my 20 yr mortgage and family at rest for that.  If Fonterra want to run the farm, then they can buy it and do it themselves, amongst all their (unrenumerated) paperwork.

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The problem is that Farm Management is no longer understood for what it really entails and has been subsumed by "Commerce" people who simplistically assume it is about accounts based business. It is not. It is a discipline in itself that relies heavily on production economics as part of a systems approach which must also encompass attitudes and beliefs of those involved in changing resource use in a logical manner.

It could be argued that the "Agribusiness" title and thrust has been the major contrbutor to the productionist era of farming that has led to the problems now being faced. Banks of course have encouraged this wrong turn as they see themselves as Agribusiness without the credentials to actually understand that Farm Management is not all straight line input/output relationships that can be controlled by cash flow decisions.

Cue up another win for the ignorance of those who control the direction of education and a major loss for farming and the environment.

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