A. Grant Anderson

Predicting enterprise choice: Exit from dairying in New Zealand

Abstract Change in enterprise from dairying to beef farming has been common in Northland, New Zealand during the 1970s and early 1980s. Data from intensive farm interviews on two random samples of farms (one group which ceased to practice dairying between 1975 and 1983 and a second which continued during this period) are used to distinguish the two groups of properties. Significant differences in size, land cover, production, capital value and age of farmers are identified. A stepwise logistical regression model with age of farmer and milkfat production in 1975 as the independent variables predicts the enterprise choice of 75% of the farm families for 1983. These two independent variables are summarising broader characteristics of the properties because age is shown to be colinear with equity, value of property and inputs and milkfat production with other measures of productivity. The necessity of including such structural variables in any behavioural analysis of enterprise choice is emphasised.

Man and landscape in the insular Pacific

Abstract Human settlement of the insular Pacific is the most recent episode in mans occupance of the terrestrial world. The practice of shifting agriculture, with the associated use of fire to clear garden patches from forest, brought the first extensive modification of island ecosystems, replacing climax forest vegetation with disclimax secondary forest, and in the seasonally dry areas of larger islands, with savanna vegetation. But pre-historic societies were low energy societies, using simple tools applied to biodegradable resources, and unless population pressure developed, environmental stress was unlikely to occur. The penetration of the Pacific by European and United States interests from the late 18th century onwards brought new pressures. Exploitation of natural resources, establishment of European-controlled commercial plantations, the progressive incorporation of island people into a monetary economy, and the deliberate and uncontrolled introduction to the islands of new plants and animals all helped to disturb the pre-existing equilibrium. The pressures were not severe during the colonial period. But more recently, particularly since the Second World War, rapid growth and redistribution of population, the increasing economic polarisation between industrial-metropolitan countries of the rimland, and the island territories, the application of high-energy modern technology in certain limited areas of economic life, and the consequent increase in tempo of resource use have brought intensified pressure upon the environment and increased conflict in landuse. The small scale of island societies and the limited wealth limits their capacity to monitor or control these conflicts.