Conclusions
Attaining sustainable agricultural practices requires an understanding of, and balancing of, many complex factors in a very complex system.
We have argued in this paper that understanding and applying the factors influencing individual and community based change are paramount. Active participation by all stakeholders is, we believe, critical. Officials and scientists must recognise that their role is to empower and support individual landholders in their decision making. We can make progress with such approaches even under such difficult conditions as the South Island high country (Elliott and Anderson, 1995). The challenge is for us all to recognise the role we have to play and how best to perform it. Learning how to better manage agricultural systems through multistakeholder processes utilising scientific knowledge in community driven initiatives is, we believe, the best means to achieve sustainable outcomes and therefore attain the oft quoted phrase "quality products from a quality environment".
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