Reducing the cost of complexity for greater farming system change

Rick Llewellyn

CSIRO, Waite Campus

Increasing value of convenience

• Trends in farm businesses and management

• Implications for agricultural innovation and technologies• Value of convenience • Cost of complexity

• Challenge for R&D• Shift in drivers of relative advantage• Potential for innovation-advisor synergy• Expanding research role in innovation development process

Increasing farm sizeLess managers per hectareGreater land use intensity

More management demands

Less available labour & management attention

Farm business trends

Management constraints affecting farm productivity

- Management constraints a major factor limiting farm productivity growth and technical efficiency

- Management constraints leading to widening gap in farm efficiency

(ABARE, 2010; Hughes et al., 2011)

Increasing research recognition of complexity and labour constraints in farming systems

(Kingwell 2011; Doole et al 2009)

Lucerne increases whole farm profitability by 3% but increases management time by 9%

Examples from Australian crop-livestock farming

No-shear sheep

(or no sheep)

Autosteer/ GPS Guidance

Convenience in a bag:Herbicide tolerant soybean, US

Non-pecuniary embodied benefits:

simplicity; flexibility

Piggot and Marra 2008

Embodied innovations

Embodied innovations:

The benefits are obtained relatively simply through its direct use.

Benefits can be attributed simply and directly

(e.g. new disease resistant crop; autosteer)

Non-embodied innovations: Usually information-intensive. Ongoing decisions and management

are needed to benefit from the technology

Require higher levels of management capacity to gain full value - skills, education, advisory support

(e.g. monitoring tools; variable rate technology; soil tests)

RR Soybean: the growing value of convenience

• Evidence that growers become accustomed to convenience

• More inelastic demand

• Willing to pay higher prices for embodied convenience

• Less willing to shift away from embodied convenience

• Shifts in farm labour allocation; IWM reluctance

Piggot and Marra 2008 +Uematsu et al 2010; Fernande z-Cornejo et al 2005.

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Llewellyn & D’Emden 2010

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Llewellyn & D’Emden 2010

Factors influencing no-till adoption rate

Use of crop consultant Higher education

Higher participation in extension activities Years since first awareness of nearby no-till adopter

Prior year much drier than average

Perceived soil moisture conserving benefits and improved seeding timeliness

Effectiveness of pre-emergent weed control (perceived) Relative price of glyphosate herbicide Location (region/state) and average rainfall

D’ Emden et al. 2007 (SA, Vic, NSW, WA 2003) ; 82% of decisions correctly predicted – 2003 use

From Logit &

Duration analysis

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ionNo-till adoption in Australian cropping regions

Llewellyn & D’Emden (2010) ; 2008 use

Logit analysis of no-till use & extensive use (>90% crop area)

Growers without a crop consultant are less than ½ as likely to be no-till adopters.

• No-till system has complex demands

• Information and knowledge intensive (NT groups)

• Not an embodied technology, but advisor support evolved

• Advisors have had a substantial role – ongoing

• Agronomic constraints to more extensive use (perceptions):

• Disease

Adoption of no-till systems

Convenience, complexity and advisor support affecting peak adoption, not just rate

Time

Early majority

Late majority

Actual relative advantage

Personal characteristics; learning-related characteristics; extension; actual relative advantage

Adoption of variable rate fertiliser in Australian grain growing regions

Region

Have yield map (%)

Varying fertiliser rates on zones

and yield map (%)

SA

Central 20 7

Lower EP 32 10

Upper EP 20 5

Western EP 8 3

Mallee 17 9

VICMallee 24 18

Wimmera 23 4

WA Central 40 9

Robertson, Llewellyn et al 2011 (2008 use)

Adoption of variable rate fertiliser in Australian grain growing regions

Region

Have yield map (%)

Varying fertiliser rates on zones

and yield map (%)

SA

Central 20 7

Lower EP 32 10

Upper EP 20 5

Western EP 8 3

Mallee 17 9

VICMallee 24 18

Wimmera 23 4

WA Central 40 9

Robertson, Llewellyn et al 2011 (2008 use)

Consultant use 2x ***Logistic adoption model of VR

From complexity to convenience?

The role for research

The R&D challenge: the case of PA

Expected profitability alone not leading to high adoption

Complexity and inconvenience

A role for research not just extension

Overcoming low ‘adoption’ by advisors

Finally

• Role for ‘advisor-technology synergy’ • Innovation can be complex, but supported by

advisors• Research aimed at developing relative advantage for

advisors & farmers

• Management time scarcity increasingly affecting relative advantage• Cannot be ignored in full economic analyses (whole-

farm)• Increasing value of ‘convenience agriculture’

9% management attention Vs 3% profit increase?

THANK YOU