British retailer Marks & Spencer is helping fund on-farm research in New Zealand as part of the lamb supply deal it has with the Alliance Group meat co-operative.
The country's biggest sheepmeat processor and exporter won an exclusive contract last year to supply chilled lamb to Marks and Spencer.
Alliance marketing head Murray Brown said that had been extended for another two years, and linked to that would be lamb production trials on a range of farms nationwide.
"We're actually building more research projects around that exclusive arrangement and there's various things we're looking at," Mr Brown said.
That included looking at the effect of different environments and types of feed on lamb growth rates - research supported by Marks & Spencer, he said.
