This report presents a summary of findings from a series of publications arising from the FRST Public Good Science Fund programme 'Optimum Development of Certified Organic Horticulture in New Zealand'. This research programme ...

Farmers produce products for markets that demand food safety and environmental sustainability, while working in a world challenged by a changing climate and decreasing water and energy resources. To meet these challenges ...

The results from an ethnographic study of two South Island rural towns, Methven and Mt. Somers, are presented in this report along with a selected review of the literature on pubs. An argument is developed that integrated ...

The main objective of this research was to describe and understand the decision making of organic and conventional farmers so that we could understand why, or why not, they grew organic products. Organic production was ...

The Agricultural Research Group on Sustainability (ARGOS), a transdisciplinary research programme funded by New Zealand’s Public Good Science Fund and business organisations interested in primary production, aims to improve ...

This report provides an overview of the key design features of the Agriculture Research Group on Sustainability (ARGOS) programme. This ongoing long-term research project started in 2003, involving a group of around 20 ...

As the rationale for the social research objective within ARGOS, this documentprovides a preliminary discussion of the theoretical and methodological approachbeing taken by the social researchers in the project. As such, ...

Causal mapping was used to document how the 36 participating kiwifruit orchardists described and explained the management of their orchards. This approach asks the participants to identify the factors which are important ...

The main objectives of this report are to assess the extent to which it is possible to differentiate among the management system panels of ARGOS farms/orchards and to assess how such difference is manifest in the social ...