Insights into the influence of indigenous values in NZ's dairy industry

Abstract

Globally, the agricultural sector is facing environmental and wellbeing challenges. Communities, scientists, policy-makers and industries are requiring farmers to address these challenges in their onfarm management, which requires a transition to a multi-faceted system focus with values that move away from productivity only and include environmental and social values. This paper searches to understand how Miraka Ltd., a milk company owned and run by the indigenous people of New Zealand and which strongly adheres to a multi-faceted system, supports institutional entrepreneurship that responds to this change amongst its supply farmers. A qualitative study was conducted, in which observations and semi-structured interviews were carried out to: i) identify farmers’ change in practices, beliefs and values over the last ten years; and ii) identify how Miraka functions as an indigenous entrepreneur in the agricultural sector. Findings show that farmers were initially guided by a business and family/lifestyle logic, but in response to the institutional entrepreneurship by Miraka, a number of farmers extended their logics, by transforming the ‘family’ logic into a ‘whānau’ (wider family) logic and adding an ‘environment’ logic. The main strategies employed by Miraka were mobilisation of material resources such as incentives and awards, creation of a rationale addressing environmental and social concerns in the dairy sector, and proactive connection with new actors. The findings however show that only half of the supply farmers achieved a change in logics. The other farmers perceived the material resources as insufficient and experienced a loss of trust in the rationale. This research contributes to current literature by expanding knowledge on institutional change in the agricultural sector, and identifying how a value based approach based on indigenous knowledge can contribute to change.