Privatization of agricultural extension in New Zealand: Implications for the environment and sustainable agriculture

Government intervention has been an integral part of agricultural policy in most industrialized countries throughout the last half of the twentieth ce ntury. Unfortunately, many of the agricultural problems (e.g., market insta bility, low returns on capital, falling farm incomes, farm failures) that g overnment interventions were intended to correct are still problems today. The combined effects of these policy failures of the past and the General A greement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) are stimulating countries around the w orld to begin dismantling their agricultural intervention programs. Movemen t toward more market economies also frequently includes eliminating or redu cing governmental educational and incentive programs including those design ed to encourage the adoption of sustainable environmental practices by farm ers. Our objectives, therefore, are to explore the potential environmental consequences of dismantling governmental agricultural intervention in exten sion by taking a close look at New Zealand's experiences. At the time New Z ealand began restructuring its agricultural assistance programs, education and extension programs concerned with environmental management on farms, we re few and in their infancy. Consequently, it is difficult to assess the ef fect, if any, that commercialization of New Zealand's extension service had on environmental programming, or for that matter the environment. More rec ently, environmental-educational programs are being conducted via new and a lternative vehicles. These have included government contracts with private farm consultants. In addition, early indications were that environmentally unsustainable activities, e.g., development of environmentally sensitive la nd for pastoral farming, has declined due largely to the removal of subsidi es which encouraged these practices. However, in some other cases, on-farm activities that have the potential to adversely affect the environment have begun to increase again. This time, however, it is in response to market r ather than subsidies signals. Not all experiences from the New Zealand situ ation are applicable to other countries contemplating or initiating reducti ons in government intervention into agriculture. However, several experienc es from the current privatization initiatives provide insight into making t he transition with less threat to the environment.