Soil fertility decline and soil management for crop production are important issues for grain growers in northern New South Wales and southern and central Queensland. In this paper a stochastic dynamic economic analysis of soil fertility management is presented to derive optimal fertility...

Acid and acidifying soils occur extensively in Australia. Currently, some 90 million hectares of agricultural land in Australia is considered to be acidic and around 35 million hectares are considered to be highly acidic which is both a serious agricultural and environmental problem. The nature,...

Uncertainty has been under-recognised as an impediment to the adoption of innovative land conservation practices. High levels of uncertainty inhibit adoption because (a) most farmers are psychologically averse to risk and uncertainty, (b) uncertainty leaves room for misunderstanding and...

A changing agricultural extension environment has seen the private sector in Australia assuming an increased responsibility for the delivery of agricultural information to farmers. This paper is a "work in progress" report of a project being undertaken, with RIRDC funding, to document the public...

Perceptions are known to play an important role in the innovation adoption decision. Once influential perceptions have been identified, there is the potential for information to influence adoption by changing these perceptions. In this paper, the influence of an extension workshop targeting...

Agricultural productivity growth has been strong relative to other sectors in the Australian economy, and relative to the agricultural sectors of other developed countries. However, as commonly observed among other developed economies, growth in productivity in the broadacre sector of Australian...

Dryland salinity is one of the most pressing land management problems in Western Australia. A number of projects are in progress to provide a more comprehensive picture of the location and extent of potentially saline areas in the landscape. Associated with some of these projects, a large number...

Dryland salinity has been conceived of as a problem involving massive off-site impacts and therefore requiring coordinated action to ensure that land managers reduce those off-site impacts. In economic terms, salinity is seen as a problem of market failure due to externalities, including...

There is likely to be a divergence in the interests of farmers and their neighbours or the community in the management of land and hence a greater rate of exploitation of soil qualities than that desired by the community. This is particularly true under current institutional arrangements with...