8.4 Constraints on Technology Uptake
The implementation of sustainable agricultural production systems has become a driving force for management change on New Zealand farms in the 1990's. Identifying technologies and management practices that could enhance the sustainability of agricultural production, as well as constraints to their adoption, is therefore an important element in attaining sustainable pastoral farming systems.
8.4.1
Programme Title: Constraints to farm level adoption of new sustainable technologies and management practices.Research Leader: Dr G Rauniyar Institution:Massey University |
Summary
Researchers aimed to identify contraints on farmer adoption of sustainable practices. Technologies and practices that could address the issue of sustainability at the farm level were identified at a farmer/scientist forum. Follow-up appraisal with two dairy discussion groups confirmed the forum findings and identified areas requiring research. Data on adoption rates for and constraints on sustainable practices were obtained through a national mail survey.
Researchers concluded that in broad terms the economic viability of pastoral farming is regarded by farmers as the dominant factor determining the long-term survival of their livestock farming businesses. Economic viability is a fundamental condition for the widespread adoption of technologies and management practices that will help to achieve the goal of sustainable agriculture.
Description
To examine the type, intensity and inter-relationships among new technologies and management practices recommended by scientists and adopted by farmers in the last ten years on dairy, beef cattle, sheep and deer production units in three phases:
- a scientist-farmer exchange forum to determine the stock and flow of technologies and management practices that will enhance the sustainability of pastoral farming;
- a participatory rural appraisal to access the attitudes of farmers towards, and utilisation of, technologies and management practices identified; and
- a national survey to collect data on adoption rates and farm level institutional and socioeconomic constraints.
Approach & Outcomes
The exchange forum involved 15 farmers representing the deer, dairy, sheep and beef cattle sectors and 15 scientists/policy analysts. A hierarchical concept pyramid was used to define the term sustainability in the context of Manawatu pastoral farming systems and to identify technologies and practices that could address the issue of sustainability at the farm level. For the purposes of this study it was assumed that sustainable systems should be "environmentally safe, economically viable, and socially and culturally acceptable".
Participants identified actions required to achieve sustainable livestock systems and developed a set of priorities for achieving this in the various pastoral livestock sectors. These included:
- Better communication between research providers and farmers, including more effective coordination of technology transfer in order to provide farmers with reliable information for decision making.
- Farmers wished to be actively consulted and able to participate in developing resource management plans that impacted on their farming operations and the communities in which they lived. They were concerned about the variance in standards and expectations that were emerging between agencies implementing the Resource Management Act.
- Timely and more reliable long-term market information for financial planning in order to achieve financial sustainability was requested by the farmers. Off-farm income was seen to have become an important element in financial sustainability.
- "Healthy" (e.g. essential services, balanced age profile) rural communities were specified as an integral part of socioeconomic sustainability.
The post-forum rural appraisal phase was restricted to follow-up meetings with two dairy farm discussion groups. These meetings confirmed the findings from the forum. Areas requiring research in relation to sustainable dairy farming included:
- the impact of high v. low input systems;
- weather forecasting;
- the effectiveness of farmer lobby groups; and
- more "farmer-friendly" presentation of materials on technologies and management practices.
The questionnaire for the national mail survey was designed using the results from the first two parts of the research. It was mailed, after pre-testing with 15 farmers, in June 1996 to 2000 rural addresses selected at random from the New Zealand Rural Post mailing list. A total of 942 questionnaires was returned and of these 313 (23% effective response rate) contained a complete dataset. These were classified into four farm "classes": dairy farms (> 60 milking cows); larger sheep/beef/deer units (> 500 stock units (su)); small units (50-500 su) and hobby farms (< 50 su). This resulted in 71, 72, 86 and 86 farms in each class, respectively.
Data were obtained on: farmer perceptions of sustainable practices, sources of information on new technology, land-use practices, fertiliser (including inorganic) use, tree planting, soil erosion and drainage, weed control, use of new pasture cultivars, silage management, sources and reliability of water for livestock, farm and household characteristics, and adoption of specific enterprise technologies. The report contains tables with details on each of these aspects.
Respondents were generally supportive of measures to maintain and enhance a "clean and green" image for agriculture, providing these measures could be implemented profitably. However, they were generally opposed to fencing-off all waterways from livestock and the notion of restricting weed control to only non-chemical methods. Nearly half of the farmers had planted trees in the past five years and most expected to continue this practice. Soil erosion was viewed as a minor problem on most farms, and drainage/pasture pugging problems were most prevalent on dairy farms. Few farmers had taken measures to control seepage from silage stacks and the use of plastic wraps, rather than a degradable protective spray, was widespread. The Occupational Health and Safety Act was viewed as an unnecessarily complicated and bureaucratic imposition on farmers, and present Government policies on health and superannuation were slowing the exit of some older farmers from the industry. Off-farm employment was prevalent with more than half of the households having at least one member employed off-farm.
In their draft report researchers concluded that in broad terms the economic viability of pastoral farming is regarded by farmers as the dominant factor determining the long-term survival of their livestock farming businesses. Economic viability is a fundamental condition for the widespread adoption of technologies and management practices that will help to achieve the goal of sustainable agriculture. Many farmers indicated that they currently face a significant financial constraint, and mechanisms to improve market returns and provide more accurate information to direct investment decisions for production are required, if farmers are to be expected to adopt environmentally friendly practices.
Contact for Enquiries
Farm Monitoring Programme Manager
Monitoring and Evaluation
MAF Policy
PO Box 2526
Wellington
NEW ZEALAND
Phone: +64 4 894 0623
Fax: +64 4 894 0741
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