Farmer adaptation to change with the threat of regulation

13 February 2012

Farmer adaptation to change with the threat of regulation – the carrot or the stick?

The choice between the carrot or the stick approaches to improve the quality of New Zealand’s water is the focus of the report of 2011 New Zealand Nuffield scholar, Nicola Waugh.

The extensive report investigates how the USA and countries within Europe deal with water quality issues, how their agriculture impacts on water quality and whether they have used incentives (the carrot) or regulation (the stick).

Manawatu born and bred, Nicola Waugh has been working as a farm consultant for AgFirst Waikato in Hamilton for four years and travelled overseas from March until October 2011 as part of her scholarship. One of the highlights was a six-week Global Focus Tour with other international Nuffield scholars through India, Bahrain, Ukraine, Turkey and France and then Washington DC and Washington State in the United States.

“The aim was to give a global perspective on a whole range of agriculture, such as in India, where we visited a silk worm farm. It had never crossed my mind to think about where silk even came from. The aim was to broaden our perspective on what agriculture is and how Australia and New Zealand fit in.”

For the rest of her time overseas, Ms Waugh was visiting countries specifically for her water quality focus – UK, Ireland Germany, Netherlands and the US (mainly California, Iowa and Washington State).

“The UK has historically had a lot more restrictions on nitrogen losses... identifying nitrogen- vulnerable zones that impact on what owners can and can’t do on their land. The Netherlands as well has had a high emphasis on water quality for a long time so it was interesting to see how they approached the agriculture side of the equation,” she says.

“In the States, Iowa is a big agriculture state and California is the most highly regulated state so I was interested in how they do it, what farmers think about it and how they are involved in decisions. One of the quotes that stuck with me was a Californian farmer wishing regulatory bodies would sit in one room and come up with one lot of regulations he could adhere to. He said he needs permits for everything.”

She says that applies in New Zealand at times, although there is a general push for collaboration.

“The Land and Water Forum is a good start – all the stakeholders in a room having these discussions. That doesn’t seem to have been done at all in the States.”

Ms Waugh uses Waikato as a case study in her report because she knows the issues in the region and is familiar with current regulations and the direction of future regulation.

“But the general concepts I talk about in the report can be related to anywhere in New Zealand.”

Overall her report recommends the use of a combination of incentives and regulation.

“There is a portion of the population who will change because they understand the need or the results, but changes won’t happen on a large scale without the stick. There will be people who aren’t going to change without it.

“But let’s use it with the carrot, in the form of support and working together to develop what the stick looks like, instead of using the system like the UK where they just incentivise farmers. If you ask farmers in the UK what they would do if a payment was removed, some said they would keep the changes because they’d noticed the improvements in biodiversity. Others said no, they would go back to utilising those areas they had previously been paid to set aside for production.”

Nicola Waugh says farmers need to be prepared to have open conversations around regulation with councils and policy makers and not “putting up a wall and saying they’re being picked on”.

“Everyone needs to be involved. The more involved in the discussion, the better the outcome should be.”

She says any costs should be shared by all New Zealanders including farmers, government and the urban community. New Zealand needs to work together to address the problem.

“This is a problem that has been caused by our forefathers’ activities as well as recent farming, urban and community activities and all New Zealanders will benefit from improvements.

“Funds should be allocated to science, research and providing the support networks to initiate and encourage changes.”

Ms Waugh says regional councils in New Zealand are required to develop a plan to address declining water quality in their regional policy statements.

“It is therefore inevitable; change is coming.”

The report can be downloaded from www.nuffield.org.nz or by clicking here.

ENDS

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