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Drivers of Land Use Change

Drivers of Land Use Change | Driver Research | Conference 2002

Farmers’ decisions about land use are influenced by both their personal motivations and the opportunities available to them. It is important for policy makers, program managers and extension officers to take these influences into account when developing and implementing programs to maintain biodiversity.

This Drivers Model of farmer decision-making is a result of the Drivers of Land Use Change project, which examined ways to influence the causes of change rather than directly protecting biodiversity assets. The complete project report is available at the bottom of this page, and the information given here is in the summary fact sheet:

Drivers of Land Use Change Fact sheet (PDF - 155 KB)

Drivers Model

The Drivers Model links farmer motivations to available opportunities to change. People take up opportunities if they believe they satisfy their long term motivations. On family-run farms these motivations, or drivers, are deeply connected to their human needs. The broadest of these personal drivers is the succession of family responsibility from one generation to the next. Feeding into it though are a number of other drivers: enjoying farming overcoming isolation learning about farming educating children. Decisions also depend on the opportunities available. Like drivers, opportunities can be split into several types, or elements: Those supplied by the farmer, e.g. knowledge, skills, resources they already have and their confidence. The wider environment, including nature, demographic change, socio-economic trends and community expectations. Mega-drivers supplied by business and government, e.g. markets, finance, schools, contracts, laws, infrastructure, management advice and scientific research. These long term motivations and opportunities are also linked to the three decision systems that were found to be important in decisions about land use: family farm business land ownership Family tends to be the overarching decision system. Farming and land ownership support the family, not the other way around. An example of a decision about purchasing or leasing more land shows the connection between motivations and decision-systems. Within the family decision-system, motivations about enjoyment and isolation are likely to influence a farmer’s willingness to take on any extra management responsibilities. Again, issues about succession of family responsibility, and associated financial considerations, are likely to be important within the other decision-systems. These opportunities, such as land purchase or lease, must not only be available; they must also be suitable. In the example, sufficient land to support the needs of a growing family might be required. In this example, the key mega-drivers would be land price, land available for lease and markets for products from the land and finance.

Maintaining biodiversity using the Drivers Model

Maintaining native biodiversity on farms requires long-lasting changes in behaviour, and so farmers’ long-term motivations are particularly important in making decisions. These personal drivers are the farming family’s life-long goals, which are very resistant to change.

Changing mega-drivers to create opportunities, particularly in the family decision system, is much more likely to be successful than trying to change long term motivations.

These opportunities need to be suitable and available, but in this case they must be relevant too. This means that they meet the goals of society at the regional and state scale, as well as the farmers’ personal drivers. Defining these relevant opportunities is likely to involve considerable investigation.

One of the questions to be answered is what actions are needed to close the gaps between the biodiversity currently maintained on farms and the ideal biodiversity objectives. This involves knowing the following information:

• The biophysical processes by which agricultural technologies and practices, both current and emerging, have an impact on ecosystems, and the nature of these impacts in the long term.
• How native biodiversity information and objectives should be best prepared and distributed for stakeholders in supply chains (farmers, agricultural researchers, bank lenders, etc.)
• Changes in mega-drivers that will have most leverage for achieving natural resource management/biodiversity objectives, and the responsiveness of stakeholders in the supply chains, including farmers to changes in ‘crucial mega-drivers’.

Regarding the last point, some mega-drivers are created in parts of the agricultural supply chain that are far removed from the farmer’s decisions, e.g. agricultural research and development. So that actions on the farm meet society’s objectives, mega-drivers must be changed at the most effective points, wherever they occur in the supply chain.

Project reports

The Drivers of Land Use Change project ran from September 2001 until June 2005. It was supported as part of the Ecologically Sustainable Agriculture Initiative of the Department of Primary Industries.

The final report was issued in March 2006:

Drivers of Land Use Change Final Report - Matching opportunities to motivations (PDF - 1.5 MB)

The conference papers from a successful Rural Land Use Change Conference held in 2002 are available to download.

Our Driver Research page includes several other reports generated in the investigations, including:

• Identification of different types of land use changes in the Honeysuckle Creek area and their relationship to biodiversity
• Application of the Land Use Impact Model to spatially representing the risk to biodiversity in the context of different land use situations
• Findings about long-term motivations derived from interviews with farmers in Honeysuckle Creek
• Mega-drivers of land use change.

Please note: Document(s) on this page are presented in PDF format. If you do not have the Adobe Reader, you can download a copy free from the Adobe website.