Understanding producers’ change to more sustainable grazing practices in the tropical savanna rangelands of North Queensland

The Understanding producers’ change to more sustainable grazing practices in the tropical savanna rangelands of North Queensland project sought to understand factors and processes that influence beef producers’ attitudes to sustainability and natural resource management.

Summary

Understanding aspects and processes that influence beef producers to increase their adoption of more sustainable practices is as urgent as ever.

Achieving sustainability remains an important issue to industry, communities and beef producers as uncertainty surrounding the capacity of natural resources to maintain goods and services into the future mounts. This uncertainty has increased in more recent times with factors such as climate change, fossil fuel reduction and community concern for animal welfare. Knowledge of the factors and processes that inhibit and facilitate beef producers sustainability has been well researched over the last couple of decades. There has, however, been less attention focused on understanding key aspects of learning and self-identity.

The main aim of this thesis was to increase understanding of learning and self-identity, as it relates to roles in life and sense of place, in the context of sustainability and extensive beef grazing systems. Increased understanding of these dimensions through this research hopes to inform the development of industry-wide strategies that enhance learning and nurture aspects that are critical to producers well-being while at the same time being socially acceptable and effective in achieving sustainability. To achieve the aims of the research, a mixed-method case study, of 28 face-to-face interviews followed by 91 telephone surveys, was conducted in the beef industry of north-eastern Queensland.

When: 31 January 2008 to 30 June 2012

Contact: Ally Lankester

Collaborator: CSIRO

More information

To learn more about this project, please read the final report summary and download the final report (B.NBP.0467) (PDF, 489.5KB) from the Meat & Livestock Australia website.