With sustainability becoming an increasing focus for the rural community, tools such as Overseer provide free support to help farmers better manage their farm nutrients.

'Overseer helps to put the control of nutrient management back in the hands of the farmer,” says Gordon McFetridge, Bay of Plenty dairy farmer and 2013 Ballance Farm Environment Awards supreme winner for the region with parents, Dennis and Judith McFetridge.

Using Overseer, farmers and advisors capture personal farm data to create nutrient budgets, calculate maintenance requirements and nutrient loss. Regional councils and dairy companies require farms have a nutrient budget in place, which is easily achieved using Overseer.

Overseer – available free at www.overseer.org.nz – is jointly owned by the Ministry for Primary Industries, the Fertiliser Association of New Zealand and AgResearch.