7 June 1993 Dollars Determining Factor in Farmers’ Tree-Planting

Economic factors play a significant part in farmers' decision making regarding planting trees. This is the finding of a recent study undertaken by Dr John Fairweather of the Agribusiness and Economic Research Unit (AERU) at Lincoln University.

Detailed interviews of 25 farmers in the Hawkes Bay area were carried out in a regional pilot study of farmers' decision making regarding trees on their farms. A particular emphasis in the study was the attitude of farmers to trees and forestry on their farms and how decisions were made to plant, or not to plant, trees.

The planting of any kind of tree is considered forestry or tree planting. Trees can be planted in a number of ways, the types of tree plantings investigated in the study included woodlots, shelterbelts, agroforestry and poplar or willow poles. Large scale activity, such as plantations, was not studied because no cases of this were found in the sample of farm operations.

In previous literature reviewed for the study it was found New Zealand farmers planted trees for a variety of reasons.  In order of priority, factors such as shelter, best land use, aesthetics and finally income generated from the trees, were given as the main reasons for planting. However grazing returns at the time of this earlier research (the mid-1980s) were better than they had been for some time. It was understandable therefore that such returns would be seen as more important to farmers and that shelter, for instance, would rank ahead of potential forestry income, because it supported grazing activity.

The earlier literature showed that for a farmer to emphasize income from forestry would have been inappropriate. Understandably, says Dr Fairweather, it would have seemed foolish to give one's main reason for planting as financial gain when one would have to wait 30 years to benefit. It was more logical to justify tree planting in terms of shelter, best land use and aesthetic benefits.

The method used in Dr Fairweather's recent study was the ethnographic decision tree model approach. The models contain decision criteria, there are either two alternatives to a given question or it contains constraints that must be met before an outcome is achieved. Criteria and constraints have discrete yes/no outcomes that are mutually exclusive. Thus, for any one final outcome, such as planting trees, there can be different pathways.  These pathways reflect decision criteria and constraints.

Farmers, when deciding to plant, or not to plant trees, have a number of choices to make. They can plant woodlots, a shelterbelt, agroforestry or poplar and willow poles for shelter and shade, or trees for other purposes such as nut production, nectar, pollen and aesthetics. In order to represent farmers' decision making for each option a separate ethnographic decision tree model for the first four options listed here was developed.

Of the farmers interviewed in the Hawkes Bay some were planning to plant trees and some were not. However, most were positively orientated towards planting trees. There appeared to be few farmers who were not for planting trees and this was reflected in the difficulty in finding farmers not interested in trees.

The results from the four decision trees seem to indicate that economic factors are important in all decisions. However, previous literature shows that non economic factors are important in farmers' decisions to plant trees. The literature does report that farmers lack of money is a major constraint to planting. Therefore, the results confirmed that economic factors played a significant part in farmers' decision making, even though financial returns from trees might not always be significant as a motivation to plant.

A different emphasis to aesthetic reasons for planting was given in the findings. Previous New Zealand research showed clearly that farmers rated aesthetic reasons as important in their attitudes to planting trees. The results reported in the four decision trees do not give any recognition to aesthetic reasons. In the interviews aesthetic benefits such as beauty and improved working environment were emphasised by many of the farmers. However, because only the main reasons were adduced from the interviews, and aesthetic benefits were not given as the sole motivation for planting, then these reasons dropped out. Aesthetic reasons were not considered a decisive factor in the decision making process.

There were a number of points that did not show up in the decision tree method that did have an impact on farmers' decision making. A farmer who was very favourably disposed to woodlot planting decided not to sell because he intended to sell the farm. Since there is a significant turnover of farm land in New Zealand this may be a point worth taking into account. Farmers may choose not to plant for fear or concern that they will move in the future and not reap the financial income the trees provide. Some farmers felt that the value of trees was not recognised at the point of sale while others thought that it was and that trees could help sell farm land.  The majority of farmers were of the latter opinion. One commentator interviewed in the study summed up the situation "farms with trees have increased saleability if not an increase in value".

The study also found that some farmers used the rationalisation process in their decision making. This was obvious during the interviewing when farmers would find positive or negative attributes to trees depending on their position. For example, a grazier may look at pine shelterbelts negatively because they promote livestock diseases, cause abortions, sour the ground or cause endless maintenance problems. A positive viewpoint for farmers who like trees would be that they provide shelter, beauty or timber. So the more enthusiastic farmers were about trees the more reasons they identified for planting trees. In these cases multiple reasons were sometimes given for planting and so the main reason had to be identified for use in the decision trees.

It was found that many farmers emphasised that if they had a larger farm they would plant more trees. However, Dr Fairweather deduced that this could not be seen as a farm size factor because lack of size was mentioned by farmers with 200 hectares and by farmers with 2000 hectares. Rather, what they meant by this was if their financial position was sounder, or if they were prepared to forego some pastoral returns they would be able to plant trees.

An important topic for future research is testing the models developed and presented in the report. Since the results of the research undertaken in the study were based on a small, non-random sample it is important that a random sample survey be undertaken. Such a survey, Dr Fairweather says, would enable a more confident inference of attitudes in relation to the farm population as a whole.

by Kathryn Tohill, Lincoln University

Dr John Fairweather, Agribusiness and Economics Research Unit, Lincoln University