Signals for Land Stewards

How can the research be used? Ka pēhea e whai take ai te rangahau?

• Signals have been identified and prioritised that New Zealand land stewards respond to when considering on-farm practice change in the context of environmental sustainability.
• A practical guide will be developed to provide industry bodies, advisors, policymakers and other interested stakeholders with guidelines about how to allocate their resources towards signals that are more likely to bring about effective on-farm change to improve outcomes for land stewards and the environment.
• The findings of this project will help farm advisors, consultants, researchers and policymakers adapt their initiatives, interventions and interactions with farmers to align with the signals that have the most influence on a given segment of farmers, for a given practice change.
• This work will help ensure information is more useful and accessible to land stewards who need or wish to implement change on-farm to improve water quality. More effective extension or change programmes may enable land stewards to see the measurable benefits that could follow from their decisions.
• This research will collaborate with and support case studies that explore farmers’ response to a range of signals (such as those on-farm, from regulation, and sociocultural). This will identify examples of interventions to investigate, to find out how the most important signals were instrumental in bringing about practice change – or conversely, why some signals were ineffective in bringing about practice change. This work will also aim to identify the leverage and rewards that environmental practice change has, compared to production practice changes.
• The Supporting Catchment Groups research will build understanding of how strong signals can be co-ordinated at a catchment, regional and national level to drive good collective outcomes.
• The ultimate goal of the research is to support organisations to drive and support strategic land-use change.