Canterbury farmers’ and rural professionals’ perception of drone use in farm environment plan audits

In recent decades, New Zealand has introduced more environmental compliance processes in an effort to improve the environment and ecosystems within the farming communities. Such compliance processes often involve the construction of farm environment plans (FEP) and subsequently the audits of the plan implementations. However, anecdotal reports from farmers and rural professionals indicate that FEP auditing can be very time consuming, leading to high costs for farmers and less efficient use of time for rural professionals (auditors). This study used a qualitative approach to investigate whether using drones can benefit both farmers and auditors in the farm environmental compliance process, by saving time and providing evidence of compliance from a different, aerial perspective. The researchers observed eight audits on a range of Canterbury farms, including extensive high and hill country, dairy, and arable; followed by semi-structured, in-depth interviews with farmers and auditors separately. Results of this research show that drones can reduce the time taken to conduct an FEP audit. However, a strong positive professional relationship, including high levels of confidence and trust between farmer and auditor is necessary for achieving environmental outcomes through compliance. In other words, drones can only enhance environmental compliance provided the critical level of trust and confidence that farmers and auditors have for each other exist, indicating that the farmer-auditor relationship is fundamental for the FEP audit process. Additionally, there are certain technical conditions, such as weather and farm system types, that are more suited to use drones in FEP audits. These findings suggest that that a drone can be used to achieve a more time efficient and effective FEP audit process, under selected auditing conditions. This is provided that a strong professional relationship between farmer and auditor and ‘farmer buy-in’ exists