Resilience in retrospective: analysis of response to shocks and stress in the New Zealand kiwifruit and sheep and beef sectors
Abstract
Sustainability forms a key concept within the Agriculture Research Group on Sustainability (ARGOS)
project. Since the project was initiated in 2004, however, sustainability has been exposed to
increasing scrutiny as an operational concept in the assessment and promotion of improved social
and environmental outcomes in agriculture production. This report, thus, involves the further
elaboration of two alternative approaches to sustainable practice: resilience theory, a concept given
initial application in the work of the ARGOS environmental objective (Maegli et al 2007); and the
capitals approach to assessing sustainable practice, which has been addressed by the economic
objective (Saunders et al 2010). Here the focus is on the narratives of change told by the farmers and
orchardists participating in the project.
For the purposes of this report, resilience theory is used to provide means to frame processes of
change. In particular, the analysis examines the capacity of the farmers and orchardists to develop
successful strategies in response shocks and stress relating to economic, environmental or social
events. The expectation is that such events have the potential to disrupt existing patterns and
relationships (or the system) of production leading either to the consolidation of management
practice along similar lines or the complete reorganization of the system with subsequent impacts
on the economic, environmental and social outcomes. In addition, the relationship between the
capitals approach to sustainability and resilience perspectives provides a vehicle for examining the
role that the economic, environmental and social context plays in enabling or constraining the
capacity to respond to shock.... [Show full abstract]
Keywords
kiwifruit industry; sheep industry; beef industry; shock; stress; agricultural sustainability; resilienceFields of Research
070107 Farming Systems Research; 0701 Agriculture, Land and Farm ManagementDate
2012Type
MonographCollections
- ARGOS publications [52]
Copyright © The Authors.