IF the success of your innovative farming operation can be measured by the arrival of foreign businessmen in a helicopter to have a look around, then Mark Wootton of Jigsaw Farms can tick that achievement off his list.

Along with wife Eve Kantor, their 3400-hectare mixed-grazing enterprise north of Hamilton has been gaining global interest in a number of ways, enough for Mr Wootton to be invited to speak via video to the British Society of Animal Science annual conference next week.

With the subject title ‘Recent developments in Climate Change Policy: A Global perspective for livestock agriculture’, Mr Wootton will be presenting on how his farm has adapted to market demands.

“The whole conversation is about climate risk and climate change and animal production going forward,” he said.

“I’m talking about it from a practitioner point of view, how we got carbon neutrality and what we do from a market point of view with those products.

“It’s multifaceted I suppose.”

Mr Wootton said he has been increasingly asked to speak to audiences “on not dissimilar themes” to deal with the questions from farmers on “how we’re going to deal with the policy and the market opportunities”.

One example of this was the sale of his wool.

“Our wool is now going through a New Zealand branding thing for regenerative agriculture,” he said.

“The market’s now ahead of where any of the politics were.”

Animal welfare guidelines that have their own classification benefit “that allows you access to a market niche that wasn't there before” but the ZQRX (ZQ Regenerative Index) sits “on top of that” with an “environment and climate perspective”.

“It’s a marketing pipeline ... I think they’ve got 120 brands that buy off them,” he said.

“It’s predominantly European and North American high value sportswear … (including) jumpers that probably you and I would never afford, to be honest with you.”

It was Jigsaw’s adherence to this standard that led to the helicopter with Italian wool buyers on his property.

“Their whole company (was) going carbon neutral,” Mr Wootton said.

“That's from wool source to jumper getting on the shelf in the shop, which is commendable and courageous.

“We were shearing at the time which was a bit of a bonus for them.”

Mr Wootton said they were already selling about half their clip in the ZQ market and the prices they were getting made the farm’s direction worthwhile.

“The premium is significant – it’s 15 to 20 per cent over market,” he said.