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Policy and practice certainty for effective uptake of diffuse pollution practices in a light-touch regulated country

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posted on 2023-05-03, 18:47 authored by Jory Knook, Robyn DynesRobyn Dynes, Ina Pinxterhuis, Cecile DeKlein, Vera Eory, Matthew Brander, Dominic Moran
Although the link between agriculture and diffuse water pollution has been understood for decades, there is still a need to implement effective measures to address this issue. In countries with light-touch regulation, such as New Zealand and Australia, most efforts to promote environmental management practices have relied on voluntary initiatives such as participatory research and extension programmes; the success of which is largely dependent on farmers’ willingness and ability to adopt these practices. Increased understanding of the factors influencing farmer decision-making in this area would aid the promotion of effective advisory services. This study provides insights from 52 qualitative interviews with farmers and from observations of nine farmer meetings and field days. We qualitatively identify factors that influence farmer decision-making regarding the voluntary uptake of water quality practices and develop a typology for categorising farmers according to the factors that influence their decision-making. We find that in light-touch regulated countries certainty around policy and also around the effectiveness of practices is essential, particularly for farmers who delay action until compelled to act due to succession or regulation. The contribution of this paper is threefold: (i) it identifies factors influencing decision-making around the uptake of water quality practices in a light-touch regulated country; (ii) it develops a typology of different farmer types; and (iii) it provides recommendations on policy approaches for countries with light-touch regulation, which has potential relevance for any countries facing changes regarding their agricultural policy, such as post-Brexit policy in the UK.

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Rights statement

© The Author(s) 2020. Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://crea tivecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.

Language

  • English

Does this contain Māori information or data?

  • No

Publisher

Springer Nature

Journal title

Environmental Management

ISSN

0364-152X

Citation

Knook, J., Dynes, R., Pinxterhuis, I., de Klein, C. A. M., Eory, V., Brander, M., & Moran, D. (2020). Policy and practice certainty for effective uptake of diffuse pollution practices in a light-touch regulated country. Environmental Management, 65, 243–256. doi:10.1007/s00267-019-01242-y

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