Causal mapping of ARGOS high country farms and comparisons to sheep/beef and dairy farms

Abstract

The Agriculture Research Group On Sustainability (ARGOS) is investigating the social, environmental and economic consequences of different management systems in different farming sectors in New Zealand (for more information visit www.argos.org.nz). The sectors being studied include kiwifruit, sheep/beef and dairy, and the systems being studied include conventional, integrated and organic management. Twelve farms under each system are being studied. This report focuses on eight case studies involving participating high country farmers. As part of the ARGOS social objective, causal mapping was used to document how the eight high country farmers described and explained their farming systems, broadly defined to include economic, social and environmental factors. Participants identified the most important factors (among the 41 provided) in the management and performance of their farms and linked these together to form a causal map. They then indicated the strength of these linkages on a scale of 1 (weak) to 10 (strong). Centrality scores, the sum of the weightings of the arrows entering and leaving a factor, indicated the importance of each factor. An overall or group map was produced by taking an average of the key data from each individual farmer map in order to characterise high country farming.