New Zealand Farmer Attitude and Opinion Survey 2008: Management systems and farming sustainability

The survey results presented in this report are part of ongoing research on New Zealand farmers and how they respond to changes and issues related to the sustainability of primary production. The survey assessed how farmers perceived three management systems (conventional, modified conventional or integrated management, and organic). Questions covered the precise identification of the management system the farmers used, their intentions to use different management systems, what they perceived as the outcomes from the use of each management system and the perceived barriers to using an alternative system. An additional objective was to assess how farmers were thinking about a range of issues important to the sustainability of agriculture, including farm plans, emissions trading, and water and irrigation. A questionnaire was posted to a random sample of full-time and part-time farmers. The response rate was only 16%, possibly due to the timing of the survey and the difficulty of the questions. Most of the questions used a seven point rating scale and the mean score and score distributions were examined. The data were analysed descriptively, supplemented with some statistical tests and detailed analyses