Previous papers at this conference over the years have dealt with trends in productivity in the total agricultural sector, the forestry sector and the dairy sector. Productivity indexes were developed by the Tornquist methodology that produces index numbers free of base year bias. Sources of...

This paper is based on an econometric model of the New Zealand meat export trade for the period 1990-2003. The model is known as a gravity model because it describes trade flows as being balanced between the respective pull of domestic and importing country size and incomes. The meat trade is...

R&D spending in New Zealand is a mixture of private and public investment undertaken to improve productive activity and efficiency. Investment is split fairly equally between private business, government organisations and the universities. It is a long term investment with some uncertainty about...

The greatest friction in trade and fishery between Japan and New Zealand was the Total Economic Relationship, which was insisted by the PM of NZ. NZ wanted to export dairy foods in exchange for admitting fishing. Both governments experienced a long and tough negotiation. Recently frictions have...

Nitrogen discharge into the Waikato River has been identified as the primary source of potential water quality degradation. Rising nitrogen levels in water are attributed to non point source pollution from agricultural activities. Pastoral farming is the predominant agricultural land use in the...

A risk efficient frontier for a pastoral farm indicates the optimal enterprise mix that allows the farmer to generate the highest income for a given level of financial risk. It is calculated by matching the available range of enterprises (sheep, beef cattle, deer, dairy, exotic forest and...

Beginning in 2000 Lincoln University has completed biennial surveys of people's perceptions of the state of the New Zealand environment. The surveys use the Pressure-State-Response framework for state of the environment reporting to assess resources such as air quality, native plants and...

Lakes Taupo and Rotorua are important to New Zealand, but declining lake water quality is increasingly becoming a problem. Primary producers are said to be impacting heavily on the lakes' water quality through discharges that reach them through streams and ground water. The paper discusses the...

There is a need for better understanding and estimating forests non-market values. This study aimed to investigate the environmental and social values of plantation forests in New Zealand focusing in Hawke’s Bay. Identified stakeholder groups considered Erosion control, Water quality and...

The National Policy Statement on Freshwater Management now requires that water quality objectives and limits be set for all water bodies in New Zealand. Where objectives result in the development of nitrate limits for waterways and development pressure is likely to make these limits difficult to...