Formerly Pact Consulting Limited

Nguturoa Catchment Field Day: Seeing, understanding, believing

Background

The Nguturoa ‘Seeing, Understanding, Believing’, (SUB) Project was begun by a group of landowners and farmers in the Nguturoa Catchment of the Manawatū.  The purpose of the project funded by Our Land and Water is to measure trends in the ecological health, nutrient levels and sediment status of the Nguturoa Stream, directly linked to waterways draining from critical source areas on agricultural properties.  Three participating landowners have developed farm plans showing how they are contributing towards improving the waterway in the catchment as part of their farming businesses.

The purpose of this field day is to introduce farmers, land owners, and agri-business to the project and the tools and processes that support it.  These include:

  • An understanding of water quality and waterway ecology and the factors that influence these.
  • An understanding of farm systems, farm business, and strategic decision making.
  • The Stream Health, Monitoring and Assessment Kit (SHMAK) produced by the National Institute of Water and Atmosphere (NIWA).

During this field day we have provided a range of speakers to inform us about these topics and we look forward to your contributions in the discussions.

 

 

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Towards A General Theory For Understanding (Non)Compliance Behaviours

Abstract

It is commonplace for regulators to apply a cost-benefit assessment of the likelihood of (non)compliance when they are introducing new regulations. However, empirical studies have shown that generally people are much more likely to comply than a calculation of their benefits and costs might imply. Early behavioural studies into peoples’ (non)compliance initially took a dualistic approach assuming that people would either fully agree or disagree with implementing regulations. This has been shown to be too simplistic to address the complexities involved in understanding peoples’ actual behaviour when they are responding to new regulations. 

In this paper a Social-Cognitive Model (SCM) is proposed for providing an understanding of peoples’ compliance behaviour and predicting their likely responses to regulatory interventions affecting their lives. The SCM’s strength is that it integrates three existing theories describing peoples’ policy motivation, social contract alignment, and personal dissonance. In the model, compliance behaviours are encouraged when the regulations appeal to intrinsic motivations, when people have a trusted relationship with the regulator, and when people want to support the intent of the regulation. In contrast, noncompliance behaviours are more likely when the regulation appeals to extrinsic motivations, when in peoples’ experience the regulator appears to be unfair, and when the regulation is perceived to be a threat to the majority of peoples’ existing behaviours. The type and level of enforcement then can be matched to the factors that can encourage compliance and reduce noncompliance. 

Parminter, Terry. Paper presented at the 2020 conference of the NZ Agricultural and Resource Economics Society.

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The impact of possible changes to nitrogen loss regulations on the financial viability of dairy farms in the Upper Manawatū River catchment

Abstract

The Manawatū-Wanganui Regional Council regional plan (the One Plan) regulates the use of natural resources in the Region and includes a table of allowable nitrogen leaching maxima reflecting the natural capital of soils in the Region and based on Overseer® results from 2007. Dairy farms applying for controlled consents for intensive land-use activities in the Region need to comply with these maxima. However, the maxima in the Table have not been adjusted as new versions of Overseer® have been introduced since the table was produced.

This study compares the impact on representative dairy farms of complying with the original figures in the table with results from a revised table that takes into account more recent versions of Overseer®. Cluster analysis was used to select five representative farms in the Tararua District and their farm systems  were modified  to comply with both the original  and the revised table.

The current version of Overseer® was used to model the farm outputs based on  the original table of leaching maxima.Compared with the baseline farm results, nitrogen losses were reduced by over 50% and milk production by 40%. When the same comparison was undertaken with the table of revised maxima, the nitrogen losses were expected to reduce by almost 40% and milk production by 5%. Applying the original nitrogen leaching maxima to the five representative farms resulted in about two thirds of farms within the catchment  being unable to pay the interest on their debts. The revised nitrogen leaching maxima reduced this to <10%.

The nitrogen leaching maxima in the One Plan should be revised to: better reflect the changes in the science underpinning current versions of Overseer®;  achieve the nitrogen reduction targets in the region; and minimise the impact of the One Plan policies and rules on the financial viability of existing dairy farms.

Terry G. Parminter, Scott D. Ridsdale, Stefan D. Bryant, Ian G. McNab, Kate A. Proctor, Lynette A. Baish: The impact of possible changes to nitrogen loss regulations on the financial viability of dairy farms in the Upper Manawatū River catchment. Final draft of paper presented at the 2019 conference of the New Zealand Grasslands Society.

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Greenhouse Gases: reductions being achieved on Manawatu dairy farms

Abstract

In 2018, the Manawatu Wanganui Regional Council (Horizons) began examining natural resource management in the region in preparation for a plan review. This includes the information provided by dairy farmers as part of their land-use consent applications. In this paper the authors describe the reductions in greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) emissions being achieved by dairy farmers in the Tararua District as a co-benefit from reducing nitrogen losses to water.

The sample of 126 dairy farms came from a relatively high rainfall area (1000-2000mm/yr) and mixed soil types (mostly brown and allophanic soils). In 2012-13, the annual losses of nitrogen to water averaged 40 kgN/ha (ranging from 24-60 kgN/ha). The annual GHG emissions averaged 11.2 t/ha (ranging from 10-15 t/ha). There was a very poor relationship between individual farm nitrogen losses to water and their GHG emissions (R2 <0.1).

To model the effect of management practices that reduce nitrogen losses to water, the farms were placed into five groups using cluster analysis. Five clusters of farms were modelled in Overseer®, to represent all the dairy farms in the catchment. Management mitigations were introduced sequentially to each cluster farm and the nitrogen losses to water calculated over an expected 20 year timeframe.

When the changes in GHG emissions were compared with the expected reductions in nitrogen losses, a possible co-benefit became apparent. Across the representative dairy farms in the catchment, after introducing the management mitigations for improving water quality, the GHG percentage reductions were estimated to be around 64% of the percentage reductions in nitrogen losses to water.

From these results, it appears likely that dairy farmers in the Tararua District will achieve significant reductions in GHG emissions from the adoption of management practices designed to reduce nitrate losses to water.

Terry Parminter, Kate Proctor, Tom Bowen, Greenhouse Gases: Reductions being achieved on Manawatu dairy farms. Paper presented to 2018 conference of New Zealand Agriculture and Resource Economics Society.

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Designing policy interventions to change environmental behaviours: theory and practice

 

Abstract

Policy interventions are usually intended to result in changes in human behaviour to achieve social, economic and environmental outcomes.  So, it is helpful for policy makers to have access to descriptions of human behaviour and theories of change that can improve the effectiveness and efficiency of natural resource policy.  This paper reviews some of the available approaches that have been developed from economic, sociological and psychological principles.

In the paper, frameworks and models explaining human behaviour are described separately from those that can be used to understand the processes of behaviour change.  The frameworks consider the conscious and subconscious relationships between attitudes and behaviour as well as the contextual issues involved in societal change.  Making use of these principles, a 7E Policy Package model that integrates information about behaviours and behaviour change is presented that can be used to provide a balanced mix of coercive and non-coercive policy measures.

 

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