Mathew Alexanderson

Australian agriculture and the rural communities that depend upon it are expected to experience significant impacts from climate change. The recognition of the human role in climate change is central in the design and implementation of effective strategies to mitigate and adapt to its impacts. Understanding the extent to which members of the public, such as private landholders, acknowledge human-caused climate change is critical, given their role as custodians of large tracts of natural resources. Rural social benchmarking studies are a useful tool for understanding landholder values and beliefs. Here, we use a rural social benchmarking survey to examine landholder agreement regarding the extent to which humans contribute to climate change across four Australian agricultural regions. We perform hierarchical clustering analysis to determine subgroups of landholders with similar patterns of survey responses. We then evaluate this effect of cluster membership and demographic characteristics using Bayesian ordinal regression on levels of agreement with the statement "that human activities are influencing climate change." Our findings reveal three distinct clusters based on patterns of responses to survey questions eliciting participants values beliefs and norms. Cluster membership exhibits the strongest positive influence on agreement (0.52, 95% CI: 0.37 to 0.67). This was followed by higher education levels (0.32, 95% CI: 0.22 to 0.41). Gender showed a moderately uncertain but positive influence. Years residing on the property, participant age, and property size showed very little influence, while rainfall zones showed a negative influence of-0.29 (95% CI: -0.47 to-0.12). Our results underscore the need for extension programs to consider landholder typologies based on a combination of lived experience and demographics.

The agricultural and social landscape of rural Australia is changing, with many farmers interested in, and some actively moving towards, regenerative agriculture-but what do we understand of the farmers undertaking these transitions? Regenerative agriculture is a holistic way of managing landscapes that aims to move beyond sustainability to regenerate natural systems, while supporting farming system viability. While several authors have discussed the higher-level philosophical underpinnings of regenerative agriculture, there are few empirical studies exploring the motivators for farmers to implement a suite of practices within the regenerative agriculture tool-kit. By undertaking an online survey targeting regenerative farmers, this study identifies common attributes of regenerative farmers, as well as key motivators for, and barriers to change, including perceived benefits arising from the approach. An online survey was promoted through the social media pages of three farming groups, resulting in 96 self-identifying Australian regenerative farmers included in this analysis. Results demonstrate that a clear and recent shift has taken place for this group, who may feel ostracized within their local community, hence often rely on information from online and international sources of agricultural information. This article builds a core understanding of the goals, attributes, aspirations and challenges of regenerative farmers and offers a definition of regenerative agriculture that is derived from farmer responses.

This evaluation report of the Southern Queensland Northern New South Wales (SQNNSW) Drought and Innovation Hub funded Regenerative Agriculture Mentoring Program (RAMP),
details the approaches and findings of the program that ran from November 2022 to June 2023. The report is designed to provide information about the program for industry bodies and individuals, government, policymakers, and farmers who are seeking to support farmers to farm into the future in a way that not only sustains, but regenerates.

Regenerative agriculture is an alternative approach to farming that has been gaining traction and interest among farmers due to its potential to reduce input costs, improve soil health, and increase the resilience of farming systems. This paper undertakes a practice-based analysis of farmers, applying a lens of regenerative agriculture. Surveys were developed as a part of a broader project using an established methodological framework. Topics were developed and adapted with input from local stakeholders before being mailed out to three farming regions across Australia (the Western Australian Wheatbelt, the Eyre Peninsula in South Australia and Central West New South Wales). The research clustered farmers into two groups: those who are using best-practices that fall inside the scope of regenerative agriculture, and those who are not. The similarities and differences in farmer attributes, as well as self-reported knowledge levels and information sources used by each group are explored. Results indicate that a belief in anthropogenic climate change may be one of the primary divides between the two groups, and therefore a possible driver of best-practice implementation. The findings provide insight into perceptions of regenerative agriculture for Australian farmers, and may assist with knowledge dissemination amongst those managing our environment.

As a developing nation, Papua New Guinea (PNG) is heavily reliant on agriculture for its socio-economic growth and development. More than a decade of strong economic growth, resulting predominantly from natural resource exploration, has not improved the welfare of most Papua New Guineans and GDP per capita remains virtually unchanged since that at independence in 1975 (Pryke & Barker, Citation2017). Economic, social, environmental, and cultural development in PNG is complex as individuals have a dominant allegiance to, and trust in, sub-national groupings, notably clans or wantoks formed from over 800 distinctive local cultures and language groups (Hanson et al., Citation2001).

Approximately 87% of PNGs population live in rural areas and 85% are dependent on semi-subsistence agricultural production. In addition to owning small plots of coffee, cocoa, oil palm and other crops, as a small family enterprise, communities are increasingly engaging in small agricultural and livestock businesses. The introduction of vanilla, wheat, rice and beekeeping has had significant impacts on farmers’ incomes and subsistence throughout the country. Beekeeping has become a particularly important additional form of income for rural farmers in the Highlands Region (approximately 1,500 – 2,000 m altitude) with honey sold in local and national markets. The bulk of honey production, marketing, training and promotion are concentrated in the Eastern Highlands Province (Schouten & Lloyd, Citation2019). Gradually, honey production is expanding to neighbouring provinces of PNG, particularly the Bulolo District of Morobe Province.