From Waikato to Wageningen

Monday 24 September 2018

It is hard to find time when you are studying, but Master of Science student Mattes Groenendijk manages to hunt, fish, train Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and even spent six-months on the other side of the world.

From Waikato to Wageningen - image1

Mattes Groenendijk.

Last updated: Thursday 25 August 2022

It is hard to find time when you are studying, but Master of Science student Mattes Groenendijk manages to hunt, fish, train Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and even spent six-months on the other side of the world.

But before all of that, Mattes was just a kid who grew up on a dairy farm in the Waikato, attending Saint Peter’s High School. He didn’t have a clear idea of what career he wanted to after high school, so when he left, Mattes decided to take a gap year and think about what he truly wanted to be. When that year turned into two, decisions had to be made.

“My parents were always encouraging, telling me I could do anything that I wanted, but after two years they gave me a gentle nudge to get on with it,” Mattes says. “So I decided to look at a Bachelor of AgriScience as I could see plenty of career opportunities. They didn’t point me towards study or even agriculture, but I think they were pretty happy with my choice.”

Mattes says he didn’t actually know what was going to be on offer until he started talking to people who were doing the degree.

“I thought I knew the scope of the ag degrees but I was just scratching the surface really. In my first-year I was doing everything from chemistry to business, which was great because you got to interact with a whole lot of people who ended up specialising in other degrees down the line.

“After we started going into our chosen degrees we became a more tight-knit group, but those connections were good to have early on. I didn’t realise how significant making connections while studying would be, with students, farmers, organisations and lecturers - it just opens up more opportunities.”

One of those opportunities came when Mattes’ lecturers discussed the possibility of a six-month exchange overseas through the Student Exchange Programme. Mattes decided that he wanted to not only attend the highest ranked agriculture university in New Zealand, but also the number one in the world - Wageningen University in the Netherlands.

“It was one of the best times of my life. There were a bunch of us and it was just amazing to be in a new environment with different ideas, and different courses, like one about insects for food and feed and another about communication and persuasion. Even the types of grasses we were discussing were interesting as we got to explore tropical and sub-tropical, which is different to the kinds of grass we deal with here.”

“We could pop on a train to another country for a weekend and I was able to make connections with people all over the world, which broadened my awareness of farming in a global perspective.”

Coming towards the end of his undergraduate degree, Mattes decided to complete a Master of Science (Animal Science), working on an AgResearch project.

He received several generous scholarships along the way, including the Brian Aspin Memorial, Bell-Booth Dairy Research Scholarship and the Taranaki Dairy Farmers Conference.

“I couldn’t really see myself going into the obvious career paths like consultancy or sales just yet, and that I would be better off pursuing something I was really interested in, so I decided to do a bit more study. It’s been great because I have a lot of flexibility about what I learn, and I’m starting to get more in-depth.”

His research project is helping understand the effects of high milk allowances on the growth and development of calves both pre and post-weaning. The research helps to understand the ways in which calf-rearing practises can be improved to maximise the lifetime performance of dairy cows.

Automated calf milk and meal feeders are being used in the trial, which are exciting agri-technology innovations. These machines operate by reading the electronic tag of the calf, and dispensing a pre-programmed amount of feed for that animal.

“Artificial calf feeding systems in New Zealand have been developed to reduce the labour and feed costs associated with calf rearing without considering the long-term effect of early-life nutrition,” Mattes says. The research project will contribute to realising the benefits and possible applications of these machines, which have generally focused on feeding restricted milk intakes to foster solid feed intake, which allows weaning at an earlier age, thereby reducing the quantities of milk fed and the associated costs.

“However, growth rate early in a calf’s life during the pre-weaning period has been shown to increase the milk yield of the cow in the long-term, and a high milk allowances must be fed in order to maximise growth during this period.”

The research project, which will be complete early next year, has been a good learning curve for Mattes.

“Your learning shifts, it’s a lot more self-driven, and your relationships change with lecturers. After this bout of study there are decisions to be made. I think I’d like to do something within the dairy industry but to what extent I don’t know. It’s under that spotlight and things will change moving forward and it would be great to be part of that. I’ve only really scratched the surface of the opportunities out there – maybe even a PhD.”