In the broadacre dryland farming system of Western Australia herbicide resistance in major crop weeds is an increasingly serious problem. A new option to combat herbicide resistance involves growing eastern star clover (Trifolium dasyurum). This is a new pasture legume with a unique delayed...

Environmental policy evaluation is characterised by a paucity of information. The novel technique of robust mathematical programming is introduced as a means to proactively account for this uncertainty in policy analysis. The procedure allows identification of expected bounds on the range of...

Regional councils throughout New Zealand are in the process of drawing up plans to enable them to meet the requirements of the Resource Management Act and the National Policy Statement on freshwater. Some councils are working on targets for nutrient leaching at the catchment level and are...

A target to reduce phosphorus flows into the Gippsland Lakes in south-eastern Australia by 40% in order to improve water quality has previously been established by stakeholders. This target, like many others worldwide, has been set mostly on the basis of environmental concerns, with limited...

Models used for policy evaluation rarely consider firm heterogeneity, despite its importance for instrument design. This study considers agent heterogeneity explicitly in the evaluation of policies for nonpoint pollution control through the integration of decomposition and calibration procedures...

Purpose – To illustrate problems a developing country faces in generating and managing agricultural R&D funds and to portray some practical solutions to these problems. Design/methodology/approach – A case study of cocoa and coconut R&D in Papua New Guinea is used to illustrate the problems...

The economic value of pasture improvement in a farming system in a Mediterranean-type environment is assessed using farm modelling. Bioeconomic modelling combined with sensitivity analysis is used to explore how new annual legume species may impact on farm profit and land use. If introduced on...