OIA26-0225
21 April 2026
Joshua Riley
[FYI request #34180 email]
Dear Joshua,
Thank you for your email of 20 March 2026 requesting information relating to AgriZeroNZ.
Your request has been considered under the Of icial Information Act 1982 (OIA).
You requested the following:
Under the Official Information Act 1982 I request the following information held by the
Ministry for Primary Industries (including any information held on behalf of, or reported to MPI
by, AgriZeroNZ Limited or its board):
1. A complete list of every company, venture, startup, research project or
organisation that has been awarded any funding, grant, equity investment or
other financial support through the AgriZeroNZ programme since its launch in
February 2023 up to the date of this request.
2. For each recipient please provide (where held):
- Full legal name and any trading name(s)
- Detailed description of the specific project, technology or innovation being funded
- Total funding committed or paid (broken down by MPI/government contribution and
industry match where applicable), including the date(s) of each tranche
- Any equity stake taken by AgriZeroNZ or MPI
- The expected return on investment (ROI), projected commercial outcomes,
emissions-reduction targets, commercialisation timeline, or other key performance
indicators at the time the investment was approved
- Current status of the project, including any updated or actual ROI calculations,
current valuation of the investment/equity, milestones achieved or missed, reasons
for any delays, underperformance or failure, and whether the project is stil active
- Copies of any internal evaluation reports, progress assessments, board papers, or
portfolio reviews that discuss expected versus actual performance or ROI for that
specific investment
2. Any portfolio-level summaries, dashboards, or reports that show the overall
expected ROI for the entire AgriZeroNZ investment portfolio versus actual or current
performance to date.
Please provide the information in electronic format (PDF or spreadsheet where
practical). If any part of this request is refused or withheld (for example under
commercial sensitivity or other sections of the Act), please identify the specific
grounds for refusal and advise whether partial release of non-sensitive information is
possible. I am happy to discuss any clarification needed to help you process this
request efficiently
Ministry for Primary Industries
Charles Fergusson Building
38-42 Bowen Street
PO Box 2526
Wellington 6140, New Zealand
mpi.govt.nz
On 9 April, we reached out to you seeking clarification on your request as in its current form
is requesting a lot of information, over a large period of time.
We also provided you with information that is available on the AgriZeroNZ website. This
information has been copied again below for your convenience.
•
Progress | AgriZeroNZ – Includes latest scorecard + 2024-25 review report.
•
Our portfolio | AgriZeroNZ – shows the 12 ventures investments AgriZero have made.
•
Accelerating new greenhouse gas mitigations - Progress report - October 2025 (the
next progress report wil be publicly released shortly).
On 9 April you responded and advised the following:
Thank you for your 9 April 2026 reply, and for providing the links to the publicly
available AgriZeroNZ progress reports and portfolio summaries.
While I appreciate the information, these public links do not fulfil my request. They
provide only high-level, marketing-facing summaries and do not contain the granular
data, internal assessments, or specific documentation I have asked for.
To clarify for your processing team, I wish to proceed with my original request as
filed on March 20. I am specifically seeking the internal documentation and detailed
breakdowns requested, including (but not limited to):
- Internal evaluation reports, progress assessments, and board papers discussing
expected versus actual performance or ROI.
- Specific funding tranches, equity stakes taken, and exact project statuses.
- Internal portfolio-level dashboards or reports showing expected ROI versus actual
performance.
I acknowledge your note that AgriZeroNZ operates as an independent commercial
entity. I anticipate that some specific financial metrics within these documents may
need to be withheld under Section 9(2)(b)(i ) [commercial sensitivity] of the Act.
If this is the case, I expect the relevant documents—such as the board papers,
evaluation reports, and dashboards—to be released with the specific sensitive
figures redacted, rather than the documents being withheld in their entirety. The
structural reporting, non-sensitive milestones, and general progress evaluations
should stil be released.
Please consider this email as confirmation to proceed with the full scope of my
original request. As I have provided this clarification prior to your April 15 deadline, I
look forward to receiving your decision within the original 20-working-day statutory
timeframe
AgriZeroNZ is an independent company and investment decisions are made by an investment
committee. They regularly report on and publish information on their website, as outlined
above. MPI receives general updates from AgriZeroNZ as a 50% shareholder, which could
include hundreds of documents and emails within the timeframe of your request.
Your clarified request of 9 April is stil broad in nature and meets the threshold for substantial
research and collation. This is because the information you are seeking from February 2023
to present is not centrally held. To locate the specific information you are seeking would
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require an extensive search of records and would meet the threshold for section 18(f) of the
OIA.
Should you wish to significantly refine your request, you are welcome to do so at
[email address]
Should you have any concerns with this response, I would encourage you to raise these with
the Ministry for Primary Industries at
[email address]. Alternatively, you
are advised of your right to also raise any concerns with the Office of the Ombudsman.
Contact details are: Office of the Ombudsman, PO Box 10152, Wellington 6143 or at
[email address].
Yours sincerely,
Stephanie Preston
Director, Programmes and Planning
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