Animal welfare considerations are becoming increasingly important for producers of animal-derived agricultural products. Recent media attention on issues of housing conditions for intensively reared livestock and induced calving in dairy production make it clear that some members of the public...

Policy decisions aimed at improving farm animal welfare involve balancing several competing objectives. Not only do such decisions involve tradeoffs between social, ethical, economic and welfare considerations, animal welfare itself is a multi-dimensional concept and some husbandry practices may...

Over the past few decades the relative price of eggs has fallen dramatically in New Zealand. This has been made possible, at least in part, by the application of increasingly intensive agricultural practices. However, there is also growing pressure from consumers and animal rights groups around...

The objective of this research is to undertake an ex ante economic analysis of basic scientific research that aims to identify the gene(s) that control apomictic reproduction, with the ultimate aim of transferring the characteristic into commercially important crops. This paper reports very...

MoRST is evaluating the Environmental Research output class of the Public Good Science Fund to identify inter alia the impacts of Environmental RS&T spending. Three specific questions are: How effective has the funding on Environmental RS&T been? Is Environmental RS&T having a positive effect by...

Community forestry in Nepal is intended to reduce poverty by sustainable management of forests. Timber is one of the most high-value forest products, especially in the case of Sal (Shorea robusta) forests in the Terai region of Nepal. Despite having several advantages, including high value...

The National Policy Statement on Freshwater Management now requires that water quality objectives and limits be set for all water bodies in New Zealand. Where objectives result in the development of nitrate limits for waterways and development pressure is likely to make these limits difficult to...

Nutrient emissions from agricultural land are now widely recognized as one of the key contributors to poor water quality in local lakes, rivers and streams. Nutrient trading has been suggested as a regulatory tool to improve and protect water quality. However, farmers’ attitudes suggest that...