Southland secondary school principals have welcomed a Government about-turn that keeps agriculture and horticultural science as a subject in its own right for Year 11 students.

Education Minister Erica Stanford announced on Monday that the subject would be offered as an option alongside compulsory Year 11 science, reversing a Ministry of Education plan to fold a small amount of farming and growing content into general science instead. The Otago Daily Times reported on Wednesday that principals across the district had welcomed the decision.

Farmers Weekly reported that Stanford's ministry had originally intended for schools to teach Year 11 science through a farming and horticulture lens, but that once the new curriculum was written it became clear the course was too rigid to allow it. Stanford said the Government had listened, and that dropping the subject at Year 11 would have been a serious mistake.

Schools will decide for themselves whether to offer the course. The ministry will bring in subject experts to write it, along with teaching and assessment resources. Stanford told Farmers Weekly the draft should be released for public feedback before Christmas, with a final version signed off early in 2027, and that it would be designed by working backwards from the existing Year 12 and 13 agriculture and horticultural science courses. A new industry-led food and fibre subject for the senior years is also being developed.

It is the second time in about a year the Government has reversed course on farming in the curriculum. In September 2025 it backed down on a plan to remove agriculture as a senior school subject after a backlash from the primary sector.

The latest decision followed a campaign led by Feilding High School, the Horticulture and Agriculture Teachers Association and Federated Farmers. Federated Farmers education spokesman Greg Anderson wrote to the minister in October arguing that Year 11 is when students start choosing subjects that steer their study and careers, and that without a dedicated course fewer would consider farming.

Reacting to the reversal, Anderson praised Stanford for being willing to admit a mistake. Association president Rex Newman said he was pleased but that teachers should never have been placed in that position and should have been consulted earlier. DairyNZ chief executive Campbell Parker, who chairs Agribusiness in Schools, said studying agriculture from Year 11 would open students' eyes to the breadth of careers in the primary sector.

Asked whether earlier consultation could have avoided the row, Stanford said she would take the question up with the ministry. She rejected claims that officials were out of touch with rural teachers.

The outcome matters in Southland, where farming and food processing underpin the regional economy and where secondary schools in Gore, Winton, Riverton and Invercargill draw heavily on farming families. Agriculture pathways at school feed directly into the region's dairy, sheep and beef workforce, as well as into agricultural training providers and the wider rural service sector.

The ODT's report, which carries the principals' comments in full, is available to subscribers.