Surveys, research and reviews are all very well, but the problem for farmers is they are not generally designed for on-farm impact, writes Dr Jacqueline Rowarth.
Since the 1980s, soil scientists have been welcomed to the Massey University campus in February for a workshop on the latest research and thinking.
From the initial concept of invitation-only, and a short list of the top researchers in soils, the workshop rapidly expanded to include everybody interested in developing world-leading primary production and environmental management – the two going hand-in-hand.
This year’s theme at the Farmed Landscapes Research Centre encapsulates current thinking: Opportunities for improved farm and catchment outcomes, and the delegates come from research organisations, universities, local government, ministries, rural private companies, NGOs and farms.
They are scientists, researchers, policy analysts, rural professionals and farmers. There are more young people now than at the beginning, and there are more females.
But the diversity of people is not the only thing that has changed.
The workshops started in the era of farming subsidies, tertiary education with no fees but entrance hurdles, and non-competitive funding for the Ministry for Primary Industries and the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research.
Farming subsidies were removed in the mid-1980s, tertiary education stopped being free in 1990, moving to a demand-driven funding model - also termed bums on seats - and the Crown Research Institutes were created in 1992 with a battle for research dollars.
User-pays was rife.
Though there have continued to be changes, with more regulation for agriculture, and ongoing funding angst for education and research, what has not changed is the desire to continue to develop world-leading systems that lead to improved farm and catchment outcomes.
The question remains: How?
In a dollar-constrained world, farmers globally are struggling between rising costs of production and squeezed margins exacerbated by the regulatory environment and reduced support (subsidies).
Aversity to risk has increased as cash flow is restricted. Banks have been making green loans but want cash to be flowing.
Dr Jacqueline Rowarth.
Scientists, academics and researchers are struggling, too.
The problem in a budget-squeezed science world is that field research is always expensive and uncertain and takes several seasons.
Pot experiments, plot trials and farmlet studies are generally cheaper, and designed to remove some of the risk of failure, but don’t always scale up in a way that shows statistical significance: management is different.
Reviews and surveys can be both relatively inexpensive and quick. They are a tempting approach to achieving something publishable.
Reviews are by definition historical. They are often used to justify research, and sometimes to prove a point.
Dangers are in cherry-picking the data. Few reviews give insights that farmers can use – though a good review will create understanding and a platform from which hypotheses follow for testing.
Surveys ask questions, but the way the questions are posed influences the outcome.
Further, the choices offered don’t always indicate the consequences/cost of that choice. Would you like education to be free? Yes. Would you like education to be free if it meant taxes had to be doubled? The answer might be different.
Listen to Jamie Mackay interview Dr Jacqueline Rowarth on The Country below:
These are often developed from data that has already been collected, in the hope that the data can be used to create a tool that is appropriate in situations other than the original.
However, all models are subject to constraints and assumptions.
A recent admission in Britain makes the point.
The Climate Change Committee’s chief executive has conceded 2019 advice to ministers had assumed that in 2050 there would be only seven days on which wind turbines would produce less than 10 per cent of their potential electricity output.
The projection was based on only one year of data – the assumption being that it was a typical year.
The reality was 30 days in 2020, 33 in 2019 and 56 in 2018.
For farmers, the problem is that surveys and reviews are not generally designed for on-farm impact - and models are limited.
After two days of a conference late in 2023, a farmer delegate stated that the papers and field days were very interesting, but he hadn’t yet heard anything that he could implement on-farm to make a difference.
Most research does not include the economic cost to the farm of a change in management. Dollars, labour, infrastructure – all are important.
In an EU study on power-laden interactions, the researchers found limited evidence of transformational change and commented that the banks, investors and availability of labour had not received the required attention.
If we want change, the economics and the people involved should never be forgotten.
Incremental change appears to be the new thinking in Wellington, perhaps recognising the complex interplay between affordability, ability to change behaviour, effectiveness of any changes and unintended consequences.
Looking back at the Farmed Landscapes Research Centre conferences, most of the work has been about enabling farmers in one way or another within this complexity, but the economic aspect has been missing.
Keeping farmers in the black so they can afford to be green.
Dr Jacqueline Rowarth, adjunct professor at Lincoln University, is a director of DairyNZ, Ravensdown and Deer Industry NZ. She was a speaker at the Farmed Landscapes Research Centre conference this week.
