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.