Newsletter on bioeconomic and social
research on
Sustainability and Economics in Agriculture
Issue 5, November 1999
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Newsletter on bioeconomic and social
research on |
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Editor:
Dave Pannell, University of Western Australia, email David.Pannell@uwa.edu.au SEA Project main funder: Grains Research and Development Corporation Address of the SEA News web site: http://www1.crcsalinity.com.au/newsletter/sea/ |
In This Issue
Editorial
In
Brief
Launch
of RIM - Ryegrass Integrated Management decision support system.
Soil monitoring kits. New web site on sustainable rural
development. Acid sulfate soils - farmers' ideas. Carbon trading.
Policy
Forum:
Rethinking the Externality Issue for Dryland Salinity
Articles:
Understanding Farmers'
Monitoring of Groundwater Levels
Farmer Perceptions of Dryland
Salinity
"Salty Business": A Game
for Learning About Farm Management and Salinity
The Adoption Problem for Dryland
Salinity
Regular
Bits and Pieces
News and Coming Events -
Overview of the SEA Project - People in the SEA Team -
Publications available
This issue of SEA News contains a set of five articles that deal with dryland salinity, although with strikingly different aspects of it. As a group, they highlight the diversity and complexity of issues related to dryland salinity. We believe that the Policy Forum article on externalities has particularly important implications for policy, extension, research and individual farmers. Anyone concerned with salinity should read this article.
Despite the salinity focus in this issue, the most significant event for the SEA Project recently has been the public launch of RIM, our new computer package for evaluating alternative weed management systems, particularly for farmers struggling with herbicide resistance. See "In brief" for an introduction to RIM. In future issues we will present more detailed information about RIM, and results from its application.
For newcomers, SEA News is a newsletter canvassing issues related to sustainability and economics in agriculture. Our focus is on bioeconomic and social research results and their implications. Much of the research is from the SEA project, funded by Grains Research and Development Corporation. The main way to access SEA News is through email and the web site, but you can also elect to receive a hard copy of the newsletter by snail mail if you prefer.
RIM Launched. On October 13 1999, the SEA
project launched the world's first decision support tool for
evaluating integrated weed management systems. The package,
called RIM, allows farmers, consultants and researchers to test
the long-term impacts of different combinations of selective
herbicides, non-selective herbicides and non-chemical weed
control methods. RIM is particularly helpful for assessing
strategies for dealing with herbicide resistance. It represents
ryegrass, Australia's most important crop weed and the weed with
the highest rate of herbicide resistance in the world. RIM was
developed in collaboration with the Western Australian Herbicide
Resistance Initiative (WAHRI) and Agriculture Western Australia.
For more information about RIM, and an order form, see the RIM
web page: http://www.general.uwa.edu.au/u/dpannell/rim.htm
New Web Site. You may like to inspect the
new web site of the Northern Agriculture Region's Sustainable
Rural Development Program, cordinated by Nancye Gannaway,
Landcare Development Officer, Agriculture Western Australia,
Geraldton:
http://www.agric.wa.gov.au/programs/srd/NorthAg/
Acid Sulfate Soils: Farming
Community Ideas About the Way Forward. A new publication is
available investigating the plight of farmers and others in New
South Wales facing a major environmental problem, acid sulfate
soils (ASS). Written by Alice Woodhead, NSW Agriculture, the
booklet is based on a research project exploring farmers’
attitudes, knowledge and management practices on ASS. For more
information, see: http://www.general.uwa.edu.au/u/dpannell/acidss.htm
Carbon Trading and
Agriculture. A new report titled "Greenhouse, Carbon
Trading and Land Management" examines what the
currently unratified Kyoto Protocol may mean for carbon trading
in Australia, as well as the implications for land management and
environmental issues. The report is available from the AFFA
Shopfront on 1800 020 157 (within Australia) for $10 plus
postage, and will soon be available at the LWRRDC web site at http://www.lwrrdc.gov.au/. Select
"Publications" and then "On-Line
publications".
| Rethinking
the Externality Issue for Dryland Salinity by Dave
Pannell, Don McFarlane and Ruhi Ferdowsian "Externalities have been greatly over-emphasised in the shaping of salinity policy and extension in Western Australia, with important negative consequences." |
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Dryland salinity
has been conceived of as a problem involving massive off-site
impacts and therefore requiring coordinated action to ensure that
land managers reduce those off-site impacts. In economic terms,
salinity is seen as a problem of "market failure" due
to "externalities", including external costs from one
farmer to another and from the farm sector to the non-farm
sector. The idea is that if farmers properly weighed up the
impacts of their actions on others, (that is, if the
externalities were "internalised"), they would do more
to prevent off-site salinity impacts originating on their farms.
However, we argue that, at least in Western Australia,
externalities are much less important as a cause of market
failure than has been widely believed. If all externalities from
salinity in WA were to be internalised, the impact of this on
farm management would be small. There are a number of factors
contributing to this conclusion, both hydrological and
socioeconomic. Together, they mean that, relative to common
belief, the true physical severity of externalities is
diminished, and the economic significance of the remaining
externalities is further diminished. This does not mean, however,
that we can leave salinity management to the free market, as
there are other major causes of market failure, specifically
public-good issues in research and development, and a range of
problems related to farmer adoption of salinity treatments.
Current misconceptions about the importance of externalities from
salinity are directing policy attention away from the really
important issues, and are acting as an unnecessary brake on
farmers acting individually.
For the full article, see this web page: http://www.general.uwa.edu.au/u/dpannell/dpap9911.htm (114K)
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Understanding
Farmers' Monitoring of Groundwater Levels: A Useful
"Sustainability Indicator"? by Sally Marsh,
Michael Burton and David Pannell "Monitoring is more likely to continue when farmers are clearly able to link the collected information with land management practices." |
A number of
projects are in progress to provide a more comprehensive picture
of the location and extent of potential saline areas in the
landscape. Associated with some of these projects, a large number
of bores (piezometers) have been installed or are being installed
throughout the agricultural area to provide information on depth
to groundwater and changes in water levels over time. These bores
provide information about whether and when the ground water will
reach the surface, causing losses of agricultural production
through salinisation of soils. Using data from the Jerramungup
Land Conservation District (LCD) we have explored factors
influencing the behaviour of farmers in monitoring or not
monitoring their bores. In 1989, 110 bores were sunk in 7
catchments in the Jerramungup LCD. Monitoring responses were
initially exceptionally high, with 96 percent of bores observed
in 1990, but then fell steadily to 44 percent by 1997. Our
statistical analysis indicates that the probability that a bore
will be monitored decreases with time and is influenced by the
depth to groundwater, the salt stored in the soil and the
bore’s location. As well as these physical factors, we
explored some of the sociological and economic factors that
influence bore monitoring behaviour. For reasons related to the
economic theory of information, the initial groundwater
monitoring is relatively valuable. Monitoring is more likely to
continue when farmers are clearly able to link the collected
information with land management practices, such that the
information is of potential economic value.
For the full article, see this web page: http://www.general.uwa.edu.au/u/dpannell/dpap9907.htm (141K)
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Farmer
Perceptions of Dryland Salinity by Elizabeth
Kington and Dave Pannell "The survey reveals a contrast between what farmers think will fix the problem and what they have actually implemented." |
As part of a study
of the performance of salinity policies, Liz Kington surveyed
farmers in the upper Kent River catchment, near the south coast
of Western Australia. This article reports what the farmers’
salinity management practices have been and are likely to be, how
they view the salinity problem and its recommended treatments,
and farmers’ perceptions of why the salinity problem
continues to worsen. The farmers have high levels of knowledge
about salinity and its treatment, although their perceptions
appear to be overly optimistic on a number of aspects of the
problem. As a group they are highly uncertain about its extent
and rate of worsening, and their responses highlight the
complexity, modest effectiveness and relatively poor economic
performance of available treatment options. It appears that the
scale of salinity prevention practices in the catchment is
insufficient to prevent ongoing increases in the area of saline
land.
For the full article, see this web page: http://www.general.uwa.edu.au/u/dpannell/dpap9909.htm (105K)
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"Salty
Business": A Game for Learning About Farm Management
and Salinity by Sally Marsh "Different people, given the same farm and subjected to the same weather conditions and prices, achieve vastly different results." |
Salty Business is
a game, developed by a team working in the Agricultural and
Resource Economics group at the University of Western Australia,
designed to teach the principles of, and processes for, managing
agricultural risk. Agricultural professionals are often unaware
in a practical sense of the risks and uncertainties faced by
farmers, and the constraints that this can have on the operation
of the farming business. Participants are placed in the role of a
farmer and have to "manage" a typical Western
Australian eastern wheatbelt farm, located in a catchment under
threat of dryland salinity, for a number of seasons under
conditions of climatic, yield and price uncertainty. Three
workshops were held in the country locations of Geraldton,
Merredin and Moora and were attended by 49 agency staff and other
interested professionals. The workshops provide an enjoyable and
effective learning environment for agricultural professionals to
gain an understanding about a range of issues. These include the
practicalities of managing agricultural risk, the stresses faced
by farmers managing farms in an uncertain environment, why
farmers facing similar uncertain circumstances respond in
different ways, and the difficulties of incorporating an
advocated ‘sustainable’ farming practice (tree
planting) into farm businesses.
For the full article, see this web page: http://www.general.uwa.edu.au/u/dpannell/dpap9910.htm (67K)
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The
Adoption Problem for Dryland Salinity by Dave Pannell "Current policy measures are doing little to change the underlying causes of non-adoption." |
Although the
farming community in Western Australia has become much more aware
of issues of natural resource conservation in the past two
decades, its response so far to the salinity problem has been on
a scale that is orders of magnitude smaller than recommended by
scientists. This paper explores reasons for this, based on
empirical and theoretical literature concerned with adoption of
innovations, decision making under uncertainty, the value of
information, the economics of farm management, the theory of
market failure, and transaction costs. Lack of awareness of
salinity is probably not a major factor explaining slow and low
adoption of the recommended practices. Rather, the major factors
relate to the economic costs and benefits of current treatment
options, the difficulties of trialling the options, long time
scales, externalities, and social issues. This combination of
factors means that the problem in many regions is extremely
adverse to rapid adoption, probably more so than for any other
agricultural issue in Australia. In other words, farmer
reluctance to adopt the radical changes being recommended is
completely understandable and, indeed, reasonable from the
farmers' perspectives. Current policy measures and extension
programs are doing little to change the underlying causes of
non-adoption. Measures that would begin to do so are urgently
needed. Suggestions about what they might include are made.
For the full article, see this web page: http://www.general.uwa.edu.au/u/dpannell/dpap9908.htm (49K)
Regular Bits and Pieces
Overview of the SEA
Project
This project has a strong integrative focus, bringing together several sustainability issues and considering their biological, physical and economic implications at the whole-farm level. The main issues being researched in the project are soil salinisation, soil acidification, management of herbicide-resistant weeds, farmer adoption of sustainable practices and the economics of monitoring sustainability indicators. Main funding: Grains Research & Development Corporation. Commencement: 01-Aug-97 Completion: 30-Jun-02
People in the SEA Team
Direct collaborators - Economists: Martin Chopping (Department of Environmental Protection), Gavin White (Campbell White and Associates), Simone Blennerhassett (Agriculture Western Australia), Amir Abadi, Anne Bennett (University of Western Australia), Vanessa Stewart (Agriculture Western Australia). Bio-physical scientists: Don McFarlane, Ruhi Ferdowsian, Bill Porter, Chris Gazey, David Bowran, Dan Carter and Rob Hetherington (Agriculture Western Australia), Steve Powles + WAHRI team, David Jasper (University of Western Australia), Norm Campbell, Tom Hatton + team (CSIRO).
Publications
available
As
well as the articles summarised in this Newsletter, the SEA
Project has a range of publications which we invite you to read.
A list is shown at the following web page address. You can view
and print most of the papers directly in your browser.
Web page:
http://www.general.uwa.edu.au/u/dpannell/seapprs.htm
We also have a page with papers that focus on agricultural extension, and adoption and diffusion of innovations in agriculture: Web page: http://www.general.uwa.edu.au/u/dpannell/adoppprs.htm
Other issues of SEA News
Copyright note: Some articles in SEA news have subsequently been submitted for publication in journals or books. SEA News contains pre-publication versions of these articles. They have not been subject to peer review, and copyright rests with the authors. When an article is formally published, the version on the SEA News web site is not updated to the published version, as this would violate copyright. However, the citation shown on the web page is updated to allow readers to identify the published version. Readers are encouraged to make use of the material present on the web site, provided that its source is acknowledged. Readers who wish to make direct quotes from an article in SEA News should not attribute the quote to a more formal (e.g. journal) published version of the paper without checking the published version, since the quote may have been alterred or even omitted from the published version.
If you have any comments about SEA News or wish to make additions or deletions to our mailing list, contact David.Pannell@uwa.edu.au
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