Thursday, March 28, 2024

Environmental economics part of ag job now

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Environmental economics is fast becoming a big part of the agricultural economist’s job, as the profession struggles to produce enough people to fill jobs.
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New Zealand Agricultural and Resources Economics Society president Matthew Newman said most agricultural economists were working in, or heading for, environmental economics as regional councils started to beef up their knowledge and industries and the Government sought to replace lost strength in agriculture economics.

Environmental economics were becoming an important part of dairy industry economic strategy, he said.

“There are big challenges there. There’s a requirement by regional councils to put together policies around the environment space, not just in agriculture, but there is a fair bit of concentration on agriculture,” Newman, who is DairyNZ’s senior economist, said.

Environmental economics had to be applied at farm level to analyse the impact of policies on farmers and at catchment level to assess the impact when policies started bringing together different land uses, which could result in economic losses, social change, and cultural impact, he said.

Then there were the regional and sub-regional impacts of policies to address.

“For example, to look at how does a township like Te Awamutu fare if a particular policy comes in?”

There were plenty of jobs for agricultural economists and organisations were finding it difficult to find the right candidates, he said.

Training and recruitment were high on the society’s agenda and it worked closely with agricultural-focused universities, encouraging students to present papers on their work and offering awards for graduates.

“But the numbers coming through have not been great in the last decade, so it is a concern.”

It was proving challenging filling a vacancy at DairyNZ, he said.

An agriculture economist needed to know about economics and about agriculture and how it worked.

“How to put the cups on cows and now the environmental space is a whole new area. You need to know a little about everything, so that is challenging.”

The good thing about being an agricultural economist was that there was a practical side as well as the theoretical, he said.

“You are out there talking to farmers.”

Newman, born and bred in Wellington City, went dairy farming after he graduated to build his skills, and included farm management and farm valuation in his training.

The NZ professional society has about 70 members and is affiliated to its opposite in Australia.

A big part of Newman’s year-long job as president will be organising a big conference for the Australian organisation in Rotorua in February. 

The NZ body is asked to host an Australian conference about every eight years.

The theme of the February conference will be the changes in agriculture and natural resources and international speakers will include a World Bank representative.

The NZ society will hold its annual conference in August.

 

 

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