Values, attitudes & beliefs of New Zealand dairy farmers towards climate change & greenhouse gas abatement

Abstract

Greenhouse gas emissions from dairy farms present a major challenge to New Zealand, and urgent action is needed to abate them to avoid costs associated with greenhouse gas abatement. Greenhouse gas emissions from dairy farms have risen markedly between 1990 and 2009, and have contributed almost entirely to the agricultural sector's growth in greenhouse gas emissions over this period. Government interventions have failed to find favour with the dairy sector, and resultantly, there is little being done to encourage greenhouse gas abatement on farms. It is important that future interventions - both Government and industry - are informed by empirical information regarding the attitudes, beliefs, values and other behavioural influences of the target population. From this understanding, it is then possible determine the most suitable and effective means of intervening to encourage change. This research investigated these variables through a mail-out survey of 1,000 New Zealand dairy farmers. Some of the main results suggest that dairy farmer belief in human induced climate change is well below that of the rest of the New Zealand population; younger dairy farmers are more likely to believe in human induced climate change than older dairy farmers; sharemilkers are less likely to undertake greenhouse gas abatement measures than other dairy farmers; dairy farmers with a greater awareness of consequences for climate change are more likely to support Government greenhouse gas abatement interventions; about two thirds of dairy farmers are conditionally prepared to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from their farms; dairy farmers who know that their peers abate greenhouse gases are more likely to do the same, as opposed to those who know their peers do not; most farmers are not abating greenhouse gases due to costs and that they do not know how. There were many other findings that may be of use to intervention designers in the field of greenhouse gas abatement from dairy farms. The main limitations of this study include; the inherent self-selection bias of the sampling method, and the low survey response rate that potentially skewed the results.