Next generation systems: a framework for prioritising innovation

There is increasing recognition that the land-based sectors will need new primary production systems to break the lock-step relationship between profitability and production, and environmental footprint. Business as usual will not be sufficient to deliver more value with a lower footprint across NZ and create step change rather than incremental change. Assessment of candidate next-generation farm systems is critically lacking. A framework using multi-criteria decision making (MCDM) was developed because it provides the ability to simultaneously consider multiple domains where selection of best alternatives is highly complex.