The allure of wide-open spaces and the recommendation of a friend have brought two Dutch students to Lincoln Agritech for five-month internships.

Dèstn Mulder and Rens van Heeringen are both final year students studying for a Masters in Biosystems Engineering at Wageningen University & Research in the Netherlands. A compulsory internship is part of their degree, but where they go for that internship is up to them.

“We have total freedom in choosing where to go,” says Rens. “We can get inspiration from other people and where they have gone.”

That’s where the recommendation from a friend came in. Two years ago, Joost Scholten spent his internship at Lincoln Agritech, developing a virtual reality app for farmers to provide on-the-spot information about their paddocks.

“I know Joost,” says Dèstn. “I knew he had been here and had a good time.”

They were both keen to step outside their comfort zones and experience the industry in another country. In New Zealand they saw the chance to experience agriculture and horticulture in a country that was much less densely populated than the Netherlands, where space was not such a limiting factor.

They sent applications to several New Zealand research organisations, and Lincoln Agritech was the first to reply.

Dèstn and Rens arrived in September and are working on different projects in different parts of the company until January.

Rens and Precision Agriculture Agronomist Allister Holmes are working on a project with Zespri to assess the feasibility of using a robot in kiwifruit orchards. It is funded by Zespri’s innovation funding initiative, ZAG.

“The main reason for that project is to find an alternative to petrol-powered tractors for orchard jobs,” he says. “I’ve set up the trial to see does it clear the weeds, how far does it go on one battery, that sort of thing. The overall goal is to help orchardists reduce their fossil fuel emissions.”

Dèstn is working to further develop a microwave animal fat depth and condition scoring sensor the electromagnetics team has been working on.

“They have had some success with it, but they haven’t thoroughly tested its limits,” he says. So Dèstn is testing it in different settings to see how well it works out of the lab.

Both say they enjoy putting the skills they have learned into practice and are particularly enjoying the research approach Lincoln Agritech offers.

“You are a research company, and you do some academic research, but you also stand with a foot in the world of practical application,” says Rens. “It’s a real mixture of desk work and field work.”

They also appreciate the openness of Lincoln Agritech staff and willingness to help. “It’s nice to have a chat with your colleagues about information you might need from them or how to prepare certain things,” says Rens.

“I think also it’s a great amount of freedom and trust we have been given,” adds Dèstn. “In university you have to fight for resources, here they want to help you because they want you to be productive.”