New Zealand dairy farm effluent, irrigation and soil biota management for sustainability: Farmer priorities and monitoring

Abstract

Agricultural science has produced compelling data to show that soil biota may be exploited to increase agricultural efficiency. However, field application is entirely dependent on farmers’ knowledge. This study assessed current New Zealand dairy farmer’s soil management practices, knowledge on earthworms and soil microbes and their willingness to monitor and manage them for nutrient use efficiency. Farmers indicated that soil quality influences their farms’ overall success with 84% acknowledging that it is enhanced by irrigation and effluent application practices. Although they indicated that earthworms and soil microbes are responsive to management, there were clear gaps in implementation at the farm scale level. For example only 6% of the respondents used soil microbes as soil quality indicators. Scientific findings are not transmitted adequately to farmers, who increasingly rely on scientific expertise to maintain or boost production. Farmers are willing to monitor and use earthworms and soil microbes in future soil management practices. However, they lack the expertise and skills necessary for this management. Therefore, scientists and policy makers should actively involve farmers to develop specialised, reliable and less technical decision support tools that match farmer’s goals, aspirations, knowledge, constraints and opportunities for adoption. A key finding of this study is that farmers’ knowledge can help in prioritizing research options that fill scientific lacunae and at the same time produce information and guidelines that are readily accessible to the working farmer.