The uptake of actions to mitigate climate change at the household level might crowd out subsequent policy at the national level, which is problematic because national policy often has a larger mitigation potential than individual household measures. This study analyses crowding out between the uptake of low-cost actions and the support for national climate change policy in the agricultural sector. In the experimental set-up, survey respondents were primed to think about the implementation of low-cost mitigation practices and subsequently asked to express support for national mitigation policy. The results show a crowding-out effect between individual mitigation measures and support for national policy. Individuals with high levels of worry show a stronger crowding out effect. This study contributes to building understanding of when and why crowding out occurs in order to help frame and communicate future climate change policy.

The yield of a pasture is directly proportional to the amount of light plants intercept and allocate to different organs. When plants are carbon (C) limited, due to defoliation, they allocate more C preferentially to shoots to restore leaf area. In contrast, water and nitrogen (N) limitations lead to a greater allocation of C to roots. Changes in the root:shoot ratio therefore reflect changes in C and N partitioning and indicate their relative priority. A major factor that influences plant responses to stress is their ability to store and remobilise reserves to restore leaf area. Species with tap roots, like lucerne, have a large potential C and N storage capacity that is utilised seasonally for storage and remobilisation. This has been used to develop seasonally based grazing management rules. Similarly, recommendations to graze perennial ryegrass at the 2- or 3-leaf stage are based on the balance between maximizing growth rates and the need to replenish water-soluble carbohydrate reserves. However, perennial ryegrass has lower levels of perennial reserves than other grass species. This reduces its resilience to concurrent water deficits or N deficiency. Under these conditions maintaining the recommended 3-leaf grazing intervals and/or leaving higher post-grazing pasture masses are recommended to assist canopy recovery. Other grass species, such as cocksfoot and tall fescue, provide more resilience, particularly in response to water deficits.

With agrifood export earnings so pivotal to New Zealand (NZ)’s economy, understanding how expert buyers perceive the country’s agrifood products and businesses is imperative. This holds particularly true for the European Union (EU), being one of NZ’s main trading partners. This research draws on the key theories centering on buyer-seller relationships and Country of Origin (CoO) theory, investigating specifically the perceptions of NZ agrifood products and businesses held by European expert buyers who have different levels of knowledge and experience. A quantitative survey was conducted which investigated these perceptions held by the European expert buyers accessed in-person at a trade show in 2015 in Germany. Bipolar adjective scales were used to test product and business attributes. One-way ANOVA’s were adopted to test for perceptual differences between European buyers with high/medium/low experience with New Zealand’s agrifood products and/or businesses. Overall, New Zealand agrifood products and businesses were viewed positively from the perspective of European expert buyers, with the degree of positivity increasing as the level of experience increased. This study also highlighted the need for future research on how CoO affects buyer-seller relationships, especially via the concept of the “halo effect”.

Increasing metropolitan solid waste and absence of concrete information sources is a developing worry in urban areas of developing countries like in Kathmandu Metropolitan City (KMC) in Nepal. Two goals of this study were: (1) to estimate household solid waste generation and its composition; and (2) to assess the socioeconomic factors impacting on household waste generation. Using stratified sampling, 288 families were chosen from the 32 wards of KMC for household survey. The quantification of total waste and its composition was undertaken for each household using digital weighing scales. Socioeconomic variables affecting household waste generation were analysis by using regression model. The rate of household waste generation in KMC was found 0.3 kg/capita/day and total household waste generation was found 413 tonnes/day. Household waste comprised of 51% organic and 49% recyclable comprising 5% paper and paper products, 3% glass, 1% metal, 19% plastic, 13% textiles, 4% rubber and leather and 4% other waste. As organic waste constitutes more than half proportion of total solid waste, it should deal appropriately, if not it will create serious health and environmental hazards. Household size and income had a positive impact on waste generation; both were statistically significant and thus are important indicators in forecasting solid waste generation trends. Finding from this study will help concerning authority to formulate sustainable solid waste management plan in KMC and beyond.

Globalisation increases the numbers of involved business partners and distances between origin and destination. It complicates and stretches supply chains. Consequently, supply chains are exposed to higher risks, especially in rural societies where there is limited access to technology and the society is isolated. The research literature of supply chain resilience identified factors contributing to risks, factors counterbalancing risks, and mechanisms to assess the resilience of supply chains. However, there remains a gap in the use of the existing risk and resilience factors to the specific context of the rural supply chain. This research contributes by providing a state-of-the-art review and identifies which factors should be used for the rural supply chains.

Organic mulches are a traditional method of groundcover management in temperate commercial orchards, now largely replaced by herbicides and synthetic fertilisers. As a potential contribution to improving orchard sustainability, we hypothesised that the addition of organic mulches would: (H1) improve soil fertility and lead to greater tree growth and yields; (H2) support a larger and more biologically active community of soil organisms, assessed as increased soil respiration and greater earthworm numbers and biomass; and (H3) increase leaf litter decomposition and burial, potentially reducing the risk of apple scab disease (Venturia inaequalis). Cuttings from two legume-based cover crop mixtures grown in the alleyway spaces between tree rows and two traditional mulch materials, straw and compost, were trialled alongside a bare soil business-as-usual control for two years, using a randomized complete block design in a conventionally managed commercial ‘Gala’ apple orchard in the UK.

Compared to the control, the compost mulch significantly increased both soil carbon and nitrogen by over 50 %. The straw mulch effectively suppressed weeds by about 90 % and increased soil moisture by about 5 %. Cover crop cuttings increased moisture levels and increased earthworm numbers and mass by 1.7 and 1.8 times greater respectively in the double-rate ‘legume-grass’ cuttings treatment. Increasing the quantity of cover crop cuttings produced more positive effects; the cumulative addition of cuttings can benefit several soil-derived ecosystem services. This study took place in a commercial apple orchard, the findings may therefore be applicable to other orchard and row-grown perennial crops.

This paper develops a new process for identifying the lowest cost package of energy efficiency measures (EEM) and hybrid energy system configuration for off-grid homes. Hybrid energy systems, which combine two or more types of energy technologies, often require significant capital expenditure, however,

the cost can be reduced by applying EEM to the house to decrease energy demand. The method proposed here, termed Combined Optimization Process (COP), was tested on an off-grid hypothetical case and incorporates an iterative assessment of a building energy and efficiency optimization tool (BEopt) and a hybrid system optimization tool (HOMER). The COP results were compared with the base case where no efficiency measures were applied, and also with a standard process, which involved a selection of bestpractice efficiency measures. The COP method yielded net present cost savings of 10% less than the base case, and 5% less than the standard process. The COP method developed in this paper is applicable for existing houses converting to off-grid status as well as for the design stage of off-grid houses.

Adoption of Global Good Agricultural Practices (Global-GAP) improves food quality and safety along fresh produce value chains. However, adoption rates have been low among small‐scale pineapple farmers in Ghana, but with possible heterogeneous responses due to farm size economies. This study estimates the impact of GlobalGAP adoption on net incomes earned by small‐scale pineapple farmers in Ghana's main producing region, and examines size‐induced heterogeneous effects of adoption on income.Household and farm‐level data gathered from 546 small‐scale farmers were analyzed using a two‐stage regression model to estimate the impact of GlobalGAP adoption on per hectare pineapple net income. Robustness of the results was checked by re‐estimating the two‐stage model using a maximum likelihood extended regression model. GlobalGAP adoption reduced net income on small farms growing less than 1 ha of pineapples, but increased net income on small farms growing more than 1 ha of pineapples. We conclude that GlobalGAP adoption and farm size are not independent determinants of profitability,and recommend that extension and other interventions intended to promote GlobalGAP adoption among pineapple farmers in Ghana should be targeted at those who are willing and able to grow more than 1 ha of pineapples.

Agriculture accounts for 48% of New Zealand’s gross greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions with nearly 75% of the emissions coming from methane (CH4) production from ruminant animals (enteric-CH4) (Ministry for the Environment 2020). Changes to alternative low biogenic greenhouse gas emission (BGE) land uses is an option for reducing national GHG and meeting national reduction targets for overall GHG and CH4. However, large land use change will have implications for New Zealand’s economy. To address this, replacing profitable livestock with alternative profitable land uses would potentially overcome this concern.

This study evaluates energy efficiency of pastoral (PDFs) and barn (BDFs) dairy farming systems in New Zealand through application of data envelopment analysis (DEA) approach. Two models constant return to scale (CCR) and variable return to scale (BCC) of DEA were employed for determining the technical (TE), pure technical (PTE) and scale (SE) efficiencies of New Zealand pastoral and barn dairy systems. Further, benchmarking was also performed to separate efficient and inefficient dairy farms and energy saving potential was identified for both dairy systems based upon their optimal energy consumption. For this study, the energy inputs data were taken from 50 dairy farms (including PDFs and BDFs) across Canterbury, New Zealand. The results indicated that the average technical, pure technical and scale efficiencies of pastoral (PDFs) dairy systems were 0.84, 0.90, 0.93 and for barn (BDFs) systems were 0.78, 0.84, 0.92, respectively, showing that energy efficiency is slightly better in PDFs system than the BDFs. From the total number of dairy farms 40% and 48% were efficient based on the constant return to scale and variable return to scale models, respectively. Further, the energy saving potential for PDFs and BDFs dairy systems through optimal energy consumption were identified as 23% and 35%, respectively. Thus, energy auditing, use of renewable energy and precision agricultural technology were recommended for energy efficiency improvement in both dairy systems.

This research plays a part in understanding, supporting and encouraging land-use change, specifically to ‘next generation systems’. Next generation farm systems (such as redesigned or redeveloped systems and enterprises, new or novel enterprises, and new technologies) aim to reduce food production’s environmental footprint and maintain or increase profit.

This study analyses the impact of clean energy use on rural residents’ subjective health outcomes (self-reported health status, health change, and discomfort) and objective health outcomes (bronchitis, asthma, medical expenditure, and fitness expenditure). Using an inverse probability-weighted regression adjustment estimator and the 2018 China Family Panel Studies data, we address the selection bias associated with clean energy use and estimate the treatment effects. The empirical results show that farmers using clean energy (liquid gas, natural gas, methane, solar energy, or electricity) as the primary cooking fuel report improved health, a lower probability of physical discomfort, and higher fitness expenditures than non-users. Clean energy use does not significantly affect self-reported health, the probability of having bronchitis and asthma, or medical expenditures. The health effects of clean energy use on men differ from those on women; they also vary across different economic strata. We also find that farmers’ decisions to use clean energy are positively associated with their educational level, household income, whether they rent farmland, and their happiness levels but are negatively related to their age, family size, whether they own real estate, and the ratio of elders in their household.