Newsletter on bioeconomic and social
research on
Sustainability and Economics in Agriculture
Issue 10, September 2001
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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
New salinity web site - Salinity economics workshop at NSW Agriculture
Articles
Economics of salinity in wheatbelt valleys
Detecting the impacts of salinity treatments
on groundwater depths
Economic dimensions of landcare
Social dimensions of landcare
Risk, uncertainty and learning in the adoption of
new agricultural practices
Policy
Forum
A new policy position on salinity (extract from report of Salinity Taskforce)
Regular
Bits and Pieces
News and coming events -
Overview of the SEA Project - People in the SEA team -
Publications available
The SEA Project is in its last year of funding. It's been an enjoyable and successful project, particularly thanks to the creation of SEA News, which has had a much greater impact that I could have imagined. I intend to continue SEA News in some form beyond June 2002 when the current funding for the project ends. This issue has another wide selection of articles on topics including salinity, adoption of innovations and economic and social aspects of landcare. It also provides an extract from the recently released report of the Western Australian Salinity Taskforce, of which I was a member, and a link to the full report.
David Pannell, September 2001
SEA News is an excellent resource.
Nancye Gannaway, Department of Agriculture, Western Australia
David, I was very interested to read your comments on the
NAP (Focus on Salt, issue 19, January 2001, p.18) and am in total agreement. The
NAP process over here has left many community people more cynical than ever.
The integrated catchment management approach, which at its best was an
appropriate vehicle for the strategic planning stage, certainly now demands a
comprehensive review and remodelling for us to move to successful implementation
of the strategies. Unfortunately, in this region, there is every indication that
the community-driven strategies will now be made redundant — and this the year
of the volunteer! It’s a sad comment on the much touted ‘partnership’ concept.
Sandra Griffith, Marcus Beach, Sunshine Coast, Queensland
New salinity web site.
The State
Salinity Council in Western Australia has a new web site:
http://www.salinity.org.au.
The site provides information about salinity management around Western Australia and links to a
wide variety of other websites.
Salinity economics workshop at NSW
Agriculture. On August
22-23 2001, New South Wales Agriculture organised and hosted a workshop in Orange on
the economics of salinity. Details of the background, program and speakers are
presented here.
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Economics of salinity in
wheatbelt valleys of Western Australia by Dave Pannell "Roads are the biggest cost item from salinity in the wheatbelt towns, amounting to about 60 percent of the total." |
Economic, social and environmental dimensions of salinity in wheatbelt valleys are intertwined in a number of ways. For both individuals and the community as a whole, there are limits to the financial resources which can be (or should be) allocated to salinity management, whether for economic, social or environmental outcomes. While some aspects of the economics of salinity are rather discouraging, there are also unrealised opportunities to harness economics to pursue win-win outcomes which provide salinity benefits in tandem with other benefits.
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Detecting the impacts of
salinity treatments on groundwater depths by Ruhi Ferdowsian and Dave Pannell "The method can discern the impacts of treatments on the groundwater rise even in the context of fluctuating rainfall and groundwater rise" |
Recording groundwater levels
helps to monitor salinity threats to agricultural land and public assets. In
SEA News # 8 we present an approach for
statistically estimating trends in groundwater levels and impacts of treatments
on those trends. The approach separates the effect of atypical rainfall events
from the underlying time trend. This paper shows how the method can be adapted
to detect the impacts of treatments, such as land use changes, on groundwater
levels. Two examples are presented.
For the full article, see this web page:
http://www.general.uwa.edu.au/u/dpannell/dpap0107.htm (53K)
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Economic dimensions of
landcare by Dave Pannell "Economics is blurry at the edges." |
Economic motivations are
sometimes viewed at "the villain", encouraging unsustainable (and perhaps even
unethical) farming practices. This view is too simplistic. In this paper, I
outline the various ways, both positive and negative, that economics affect
Landcare. The links between economics and ethical, environmental, social,
scientific and agricultural aspects are teased out. Some of the assumptions
which shaped the design of the original Landcare programme are increasingly
being questioned. Particularly in relation to salinity, a more accurate
knowledge of the economics of the available farming responses is leading to a
dramatic reassessment of what it will take to succeed. There are likely to be
substantial impacts on the objectives of the Landcare programme and the way it
operates in future.
For the full article, see this web page:
http://www.general.uwa.edu.au/u/dpannell/dpap0108.htm (74K)
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Social dimensions of
landcare by Sally Marsh
"The social processes that Landcare has been successful in developing now need to be built on a firmer foundation of science and economics." |
This paper is a companion to Dave Pannell’s paper above which focuses more
specifically on economic issues. It is our belief that these economic and social
issues are intrinsically interwoven. In this paper I discuss social issues
related to landcare under the following headings: i) social impacts of land
degradation and its management; ii) social issues affecting the uptake of new
management practices; iii) supporting communities to manage and protect assets
at risk; and iv) achieving community input to planning and decision-making.
Transition to new land use systems is as likely to falter on sociological and
political grounds as for want of technical expertise.
For the full article, see this web page:
| Risk, uncertainty and
learning in the adoption of new agricultural practices by
Michele Marra, Dave Pannell
and Amir Abadi "Small-scale on-farm trialing plays a key role in the adoption process." |
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Risk, uncertainty and learning play a number of distinct roles in the process
of adopting new technologies. These distinct roles have often been blurred or
treated incompletely in past research. In this paper we review past research
from around the world which explores and evaluates the roles of risk,
uncertainty and learning in technology adoption, with a focus on agricultural
technologies. Relatively recent
research has finally provided compelling support for the long-held and
often-stated view that adoption processes are strongly affected by risk-related
issues.
For the full article, see this web page:
| A new policy position on
dryland salinity by Fionnuala Frost, Bruce
Hamilton, Michael Lloyd and Dave Pannell
"Western Australia is very well placed to take the next step in its salinity management strategy, which includes a renewed appreciation of the scale of change required." |
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September 2001 saw the release of "Salinity: A New Balance", the report of the Salinity Taskforce established to review salinity management in Western Australia. The report consolidates on and reaffirms the change of policy direction which has been developing in Western Australia for approximately 12 months. It calls for more targeted and strategic investment of public funds determined by a rigorous investment framework, greater emphasis on industry development to develop profitable land-uses for salinity management, an outcome-oriented monitoring and evaluation program, and increased funding for protection of threatened environmental assets. Chapter 2 of the report, outlining the broad position of the taskforce and its rationale, is reproduced here: http://www.general.uwa.edu.au/u/dpannell/taskfch2.htm (17K). The full report of the taskforce (a 732K pdf file) can be downloaded from the following web site: http://www.ministers.wa.gov.au/Feature_stories/Salinity/SalinityTaskforceReport.pdf
Regular Bits and Pieces
News and Coming
Events
Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, Annual Conference, 13-15 February 2002, Canberra.
"Environmental Management Systems in Australian Agriculture", 6-8 November 2001, Ballina NSW. Contact Genevieve Carruthers at NSW Agriculture on (02) 6626 1237.
Inaugural Annual Australasian Conference: "Valuing the Environment. Economic and Social Values in Environmental Decision-Making", July 2002 in Brisbane, http://www.teroma.coffs.com.au
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 |
