Factors affecting the adoption of productive pastures by participants in apaired-paddock extension program

A survey of 146 pastoral producers across south-eastern Australia was condu cted after they had participated for 3 years in the Grassland's Productivit y Program. The exit survey, together with earlier surveys, enabled the chan ges in whole-farm stocking rate and phosphorus fertiliser use, management p ractices, and perceptions of the Grassland's Productivity Program, to be de termined. The magnitude of the increases in productivity settings and the increased u se of most recommended management practices were not influenced by either t he facilitator who guided the groups of participants, or by the annual rain fall for the farm, which varied between 400 and 1000 mm. Path analysis of t he survey data found that changes in productivity settings during 1993-97 d id not depend on any one feature of the extension program. Rather the chang es resulted from a hierarchy of interacting effects including certain initi al (1993) and final (1997) management practices, attitudes to the program a nd perceived benefits from the program, and situational constraints such as the availability of suitable soil types on the farm. There were difference s in the significant terms in the regression models that predicted the chan ge in stocking rate, the change in fertiliser rate, or the combined variabl e for both, that was designated as the change index.