Newsletter on bioeconomic and social
research on
Sustainability and Economics in Agriculture
Issue 8, December 2000
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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
E-letters
In
Brief
W.E.
Wood Award to Richard George - Obituary: Emeritus Professor
Gordon Lee (Bill) McClymont, AO 1920-2000 - Landcare
Policy
Forum:
Salinity policy: A tale of fallacies, misconceptions and hidden
assumptions
Articles:
The
value of "green manuring" for managing a
herbicide-resistant weed
Explaining groundwater trends
Assessing greenhouse gas abatement
policies
Ethics and the economics of
environmental care
The RIM model for integrated weed
management
Market-based economic instuments
for dryland salinity
Ideas
and Lessons on Sustainability from Overseas:
Risk
and the adoption of new farming technologies in Argentina
Regular
Bits and Pieces
News and Coming Events -
Overview of the SEA Project - People in the SEA Team -
Publications available
Welcome to another issue of SEA News. Our busy schedule has meant that this issue is a little later than planned. The up side is that it is the biggest issue yet.
The article on ethics and salinity in SEA News #7 prompted a big response from readers. A number of letters about it are included here. In order to include a couple of longer letters and replies, a separate page for letters is provided this time. There is also another article on ethics, this time from Steve Schilizzi, taking a broader and more detailed look at ethics and environmental care.
Since last issue, the Australian Government has announced a new A$1.4 billion "National Action Plan" to combat salinity. The policy forum article this issue provides a pointed critique of the government's policy directions, past and present. An earlier version of this article was distributed widely via email, like one of those humorous or alarming pieces which people email on to all their friends. It does seem to have struck a chord with many, although it has also struck a raw nerve with some. The version included here has been refined in response to the many comments received. Other articles cover herbicide resistance, greenhouse gas abatement, a new method for the analysis of groundwater trends and adoption of new farming technologies in Argentina.
Thanks for the
information re SEA #7 I'm very interestred in the subject and
would like to receive editions regularly. I think your articles
and approach are very useful
Daniel Connell, Media Liaison, Murray-Darling Basin Commission
Just read your
paper 2000/04 [Ethics and Salinity] and was, again, impressed.
Congratulations. The argument would be heartily supported by my
landholder panels in the context of fencing riparian areas for
biodiversity protection.
Neil MacLeod, CSIRO
I am not a
trained economist, but have dabbled in farm forestry economics
for a number of years now. Anyway have just read SEA News #5 and
really impressed by the links between eco and socio-eco. Is it
possible to be placed on the SEA News email list. Thanks and have
already book marked SEA web site.
Peter Stephen, Department of Forestry, Institute of Land and
Food, The University of Melbourne
Your comments
on the ethics of salinity reinforce to me that voluntary action
for natural resource management is unlikely, on its own, to be
sufficient in either spatial scale or time. We will need to use
carefully the full mix of market, regulatory and ethical forces.
There are plenty of examples elsewhere in society where each of
these has been used to great effect. Keep up the stimulating work
please!
Phil Price
I'm sure it's
not your intention, but I'm concerned that your forcibly-put
arguments might bolster a backlash against resourcing efforts to
improve the design and implementation of collaborative
strategies. It's not only your R&D foci that are
under-resourced - the lack of discernable outcomes from
collaborative processes is often because they are run 'on the
cheap'.
Graham Marshall, University of New England
Thanks for
another excellent newsletter. It is a valuable resource for me
because of its relevance to that strange brew of agronomy,
sociology and economics that is the real world [of agricultural
sustainability].
Brett Robinson
Longer letters and some replies can be viewed at http://www.general.uwa.edu.au/u/dpannell/letter08.htm
W.E. Wood Award to Richard
George. At the National Dryland Salinity Program conference
in Bendigo in November 2000, it was announced that the W.E. Wood
national award for research into salinity has gone to Dr Richard
George of Agriculture Western Australia. To mark the award,
Richard gave a talk providing "a view on where we are with
dryland salinity" in Perth on December 14. We include here a
synopsis of the talk: http://www.general.uwa.edu.au/u/dpannell/wewood.htm
Obituary: Emeritus Professor
Gordon Lee (Bill) McClymont, AO 1920-2000. Eminent scientist,
educator agriculturalist, humanitarian, visionary and Foundation
Dean, Faculty of Rural Science (1955-1976) University of New
England. http://www.general.uwa.edu.au/u/dpannell/mcclymont.htm
Landcare has been a good
nurse. John Bartle from the Department of Conservation and
Land Management (Western Australia) has written a brief parable
about Landcare and what is needed to address land degradation. http://www.general.uwa.edu.au/u/dpannell/bartle.htm
| Salinity
Policy: A Tale of Fallacies, Misconceptions and Hidden
Assumptions by Dave Pannell "It is time to get realistic about what it would really take to get treatments implemented on the necessary scale." |
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This article
provides a critique of past and present policies for dryland
salinity in Australia. There are a number of fundamental problems
in the hidden assumptions behind the government’s various
policy approaches. The Natural Heritage Trust and the National
Landcare Program were based on highly unrealistic assumptions
about the availability of viable treatments, the level of
sacrifice that farmers can and should make, and the effectiveness
of catchment planning to achieve change on the scale needed. The
new National Action Plan is structured in ways that will make it
very difficult to avoid spreading money thinly and
non-strategically. A new approach to policy is needed, focusing
on development of profitable perennials, development of
profitable uses for salinised resources, and well-targeted
expenditure to protect specific public assets.
For the full article, see this web page: http://www.general.uwa.edu.au/u/dpannell/dpap0008.htm (26K)
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The
Value of Green Manuring in the Integrated Management of a
Herbicide-Resistant Weed by Marta
Monjardino, Dave Pannell and Stephen Powles "In some cases, it is a valuable tool, while in others it detracts significantly from profitability." |
Herbicide
resistance has become a major problem in Australian dryland
agriculture. This situation has resulted from the repeated use of
herbicides in place of the traditional weed control provided by
cultivation and grazing. Farmers have addressed the problem of
herbicide resistance by adopting a system of integrated weed
management that allows weed control with a range of different
techniques and herbicides. One of the non-chemical methods being
considered by farmers is "green manuring", which
involves ploughing a healthy growing crop or pasture into the
soil in order to prevent weed seed production and provide other
benefits. In this study, the trade-offs between the effective
weed control and biological benefits provided by green manuring
and the large short-term economic losses associated with this
practice are investigated for various rotations and patterns of
herbicide use. This analysis is conducted using RIM, a
bio-economic management model for ryegrass (Lolium rigidum).
For the full article, see this web page: http://www.general.uwa.edu.au/u/dpannell/dpap0011.htm (132K)
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Explaining
Groundwater Trends: Separating Atypical Rainfall Events
from Time Trends by Ruhi
Ferdowsian, Dave Pannell, Clare McCarron, Arjen Ryder and
Lisa Crossing "The HARTT method provides high quality fits to observed data in all but shallow bores (for which trend estimation is of less interest in any case)." |
The cause of
dryland salinity in southern Australia is excessive recharge
under traditional agriculture, leading to rising groundwater
levels. Monitoring changes in groundwater levels is helpful in
indicating the degree of threat to agricultural land and public
assets. Many researchers have studied groundwater level rises and
attempted to explain them statistically. We present an approach
for statistically estimating trends in groundwater levels. The
approach separates the effect of atypical rainfall events from
the underlying time trend and the lag between rainfall and its
impact on groundwater is explicitly represented. Rainfall is
represented as an accumulation of deviations from average
rainfall. Application of the approach is demonstrated using data
from 49 bores in Jerramungup Shire, Western Australia. The
approach provides high explanatory power, particularly for deeper
bores.
For the full article, see this web page: http://www.general.uwa.edu.au/u/dpannell/dpap0012.htm (82K)
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Assessing
Greenhouse Gas Abatement Policies on the Predominantly
Grazing Systems of South-Western Australia by Liz
Petersen, Steven Schilizzi and David Bennett "With the introduction of a taxation policy, under realistic tax levels, total emissions do not change substantially." |
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Three policy
options for greenhouse gas abatement are analysed for the
predominantly grazing systems of south-west Western Australia.
The two taxation policies (a tax on total emissions, and a tax on
methane emissions only) are only effective at extreme tax
rates ($85/t carbon dioxide equivalents). The farming systems
become unprofitable at around $33/t under these policies, at
which only about 10 percent of emissions are abated. Estimates of
the cost of nationally traded carbon emission permits show that
A$33/t is a plausible tax figure. Tax emission policies would
send such farms into bankruptcy for just a 10% reduction in GHG
emissions! The third policy option, emission restrictions, allows
the farm to remain profitable at 4 to 5 times greater abatement
levels than the taxation policies and is found to be the most
effective and efficient policy option studied. Results
reflect a large proportion of soils unsuitable for cropping and a
heavy dependence on a ruminant livestock enterprise.
For the full article, see this web page: http://www.general.uwa.edu.au/u/dpannell/dpap0013.htm (140K)
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Ethics
and the Economics of Environmental Care by Steven
Schilizzi "Economics help avoid unethical decisions while ethics help provide a social bonus." |
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Full-time farming
operations are business firms, and farmers are business managers:
they must sell their produce and make a profit if they are to
survive in a market economy. As with all businesses,
environmental care can sometimes conflict with the demands of
profitability. The spontaneous reaction by environmentally
sensitive people, and policy-makers, is to ask farm business
managers to show responsibility and "do their duty" to
the rest of society, to future generations, or to mother nature
itself. This paper expands David Pannell’s views (SEA News #7) by generalising beyond
salinity management and investigating the relative influences of
ethics and economics on any form of environmental care. At
bottom, the issues are: 1) society’s interests compared to
the interests of private business; 2) who in ‘society’
defines and mandates ‘environmental care’; and 3) what
is the aim of such a mandate? Ethical injunctions of the type
"thou shalt care" assume businesses have a certain
degree of freedom in meeting profits. Because of different
technology-product mixes, this is usually true. If it is not,
then trying to ‘moralise’ them is one way of trying to
achieve environmental care, but usually not the most effective
way.
For a longer abstract, see this web page: http://www.general.uwa.edu.au/u/dpannell/dpap0014b.htm (9K)
For the full article, see this web page: http://www.general.uwa.edu.au/u/dpannell/dpap0014.htm (102K)
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The
RIM Model for Integrated Weed Management by Dave Pannell,
Vanessa Stewart, Anne Bennett, Marta Monjardino, Carmel
Schmidt and Stephen Powles "The economically preferred combination of alternative weed control practices is approximately as effective in weed control as the system including herbicides." |
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The RIM (Ryegrass
Integrated Management) model represents a wide diversity of
herbicide and non-herbicide based weed management options, in the
context of the non-irrigated extensive farming system of southern
Australia. The enterprise choices include cereals, lupins, canola
and three types of pastures for grazing by sheep. Users of RIM
may specify the enterprise sequence and any feasible combination
of the 35 weed treatment options each year over 10 or 20 years.
Weed treatment options include selective herbicides (11),
non-selective herbicides (5), non-chemical treatments (16) and
user-defined treatments (3). The model represents weed and seed
bank population dynamics, weed-crop competition, weed treatment
impacts (including phytotoxicity), agronomic details, and
financial details. Economic and biological model results are
presented for scenarios with differing levels of availability of
selective herbicides and different rotational sequences.
For the full article, see this web page: http://www.general.uwa.edu.au/u/dpannell/dpap0010.htm (122K)
| Market-Based
Economic Instruments for Dryland Salinity by Dave Pannell
"The scope for economic instruments to make a positive difference to salinity is limited." |
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There has been
high interest in the use of market-based economic instruments
(such as tradeable salinity permits, environmental credits and
auction-based systems) to address dryland salinity in Australia.
There are many possible instruments available. This discussion
paper outlines a set of broad principles and existing knowledge
that determines the potential for economic instruments, and
suggests how we should move forward in this area.
For the full article, see this web page: http://www.general.uwa.edu.au/u/dpannell/dpap0009.htm (23K)
Ideas and Lessons on Sustainability from Overseas
To help us think laterally about the problems we face in Australia, SEA News includes examples from overseas.
| Risk
and the Adoption of New Technologies Among Small
Agricultural Producers in Argentina by Leopoldo Allub "Income diversification was negatively correlated with the adoption of new technologies." |
This article
analyzes the independent effects of attitudes toward risk and
income diversification on the degree of adoption of new farming
technologies among small producers from the province of San Juan
(Argentina). Both variables emerge as important predictors of the
adoption of new technologies. Later we develop a second model
that attempts to identify the factors explaining risk aversion.
Socioeconomic stratum emerges as the most important predictor for
variations in the farmers' aversion to risk.
For the full article, see this web page: http://www.general.uwa.edu.au/u/dpannell/seaos8.htm (44K)
Regular Bits and Pieces
News and Coming
Events
Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, Annual Conference, January 23-25, Adelaide.
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
Publications
available
As
well as the articles summarised in this Newsletter, the SEA
Project has a range of publications available. 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
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
Papers
that focus on dryland salinity:
Web page: http://www.general.uwa.edu.au/u/dpannell/saltpprs.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 to or deletions from our mailing list, contact David.Pannell@uwa.edu.au
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Research and Development Corporation |
