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Story: Soil investigation

‘New Zealand has soil!’

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‘New Zealand has soil!’

The importance of New Zealand’s high-quality soils to farming is often overlooked. The DSIR Soil Bureau produced this poster in 1980 to mark its golden jubilee – at a time when there was an effort to increase oil exploration in New Zealand because of soaring overseas oil prices.

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Landcare Research – Manaaki Whenua

© Copyright image. All rights reserved. Permission from Manaaki Whenua: Landcare Research New Zealand Limited must be obtained before the re-use of this image.

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How to cite this page

P. J. Tonkin, Soil investigation – Golden age of soil survey: 1951–1985, Te Ara – the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, https://teara.govt.nz/en/ephemera/14195/new-zealand-has-soil (accessed 4 June 2026).

Story by P. J. Tonkin, published 1 March 2009.