Agricultural landscape governance in support of healthy resilient farming systems

Abstract

New Zealand’s neoliberal tradition of landscape governance and its alternatives are critically reviewed for their ability to positively stimulate and contribute to the transition of conventional high country monocultural farm-based communities with low resiliency to those more biodiverse with higher levels of resiliency. An argument is made for the addition of a coarser scaled community level of governance, in the form of Agro-ecological parks or complexes, as a promising way of encouraging the implementation of novel innovative farm systems in support of multiple ecosystem services and improved resiliency for both farmers and their communities. An example of how a conventional high country farming landscape in New Zealand could be transitioned to one more biodiverse and resilient through such a governance approach is provided. A number of research issues and directions are identified.