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What does “community” mean for farmer
adoption of conservation practices?
Some logic and evidence
Graham Marshall
Institute for Rural Futures, Uni. of New England
Department of
Primary Industries
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“We are trying to encourage a process of
self-help … Some day the local
community has to pick up all this.”
- Commonwealth Dep’t Primary Industries
& Energy, 1989.
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“A strong feeling of ownership over the
NRM planning process will increase
motivation and likelihood that the
outcomes identified in the regional
integrated NRM plans are achieved.”
- National NRM Capacity Building
Framework, 2002
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Key points
 The raison d’etre of community-based NRM
lies in helping people to help themselves
 We need to acknowledge, understand, and
learn how to address the “Samaritan’s
Dilemma” that faces us in helping farmers’
self-help
 Targets, program logic, and M & E need, at
all levels, to change as we learn.
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Origins and evolution of rural
CBNRM in Australia
 Prior approaches to helping farmers
conserve natural resources fostered
dependency
 NRM programs seek to help people
manage their resource problems
 Community-based NRM programs seek
to help people to help themselves
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 CBNRM soon became understood mainly
through the lens of “extension thinking”
 Rural extension was the dominant socialscientific tradition for agricultural issues
 Governments concerned that farmers
lacked awareness, knowledge, skills and
attitudes needed to address NRM issues
 Political reasons for CBNRM focusing
“community” programs on extension
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 Politicians/officials attracted by lure
of CBNRM stretching funds further by
‘kick starting’ local voluntarism
 Ongoing financial support comes to be
accepted, but emphasis on self-help
persists
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The Samaritan’s Dilemma
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“The paradox of supplying help to selfhelp is the fundamental conundrum of
all helping relationships. Most external
help actually overrides or undercuts
the budding capacity for self-help and
thus ends up being unhelpful”.
- David Ellerman, 2007.
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 1978 ~ James Buchanan developed a gametheory model of this paradox called the
“Samaritan’s Dilemma”
 Self-interest of helper propels unconditional
help, thus weakening self-help
 compulsion to see problems solved
 empire-building, turf protection, “getting money out the door”
 scepticism about recipient capacities for self-help
 The helper needs “strategic courage”
 but Buchanan felt increasing wealth had made “soft options”
too hard to resist
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 1979 ~ The neo-liberal “revolution” begins
(with Thatcherism)
 Strong on strategic courage, but weak on
theory
 Committed to smaller government and
reciprocity
 Focus on market (and market-like) solutions
 Purchaser-provider arrangements embraced
 Reciprocity to be enforced by rigorous
accountability measures
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Helping self-help under
regional NRM delivery
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 Regional delivery model a neo-liberal
exercise in “new public management”
 Stringent financial accountability
measures follow frustrations with “cost
shifting”
 But coercing reciprocity is costly
 Limited resources to monitor compliance with
conditions attached to help
 Difficult to establish the “without help scenario”
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 Most farmer lapses in reciprocating
help may be motivated unconsciously
by reduced pressure to help
themselves, eg. by
 reducing land-use intensity
 keeping up with R&D
 experimenting with solutions on-farm
 sending kids to university
 cooperating with neighbours
 Help is unlikely to strengthen farmer
self-help substantially unless most of
their reciprocity is voluntary
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CBNRM, farmers, and reciprocity
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 Robert Axelrod identified two ways of
promoting reciprocity:
1.Change the payoffs (to make
reciprocity consistent with actors’
goals); and/or
2.Make the future more important
relative to the present (“enlarge the
shadow of the future”)
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How might CBNRM “change the
payoffs”?
 Greater “community ownership” of
decisions by farmers?
 Greater “ownership” of funds by
administrators increases their strategic
courage?
 Or … community body less able to deny
help when reciprocity requires?
 advantages of government acting as “bad cop”
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How might CBNRM enlarge the
“shadow of the future”?
 Easier mutual monitoring by helpers
and recipients?
 More durable interactions between
helpers and recipients?
 More frequent interactions between
helpers and recipients?
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Some evidence
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Method
1.
2.
3.
4.
Survey a sample of farmers
Measure their (a) trust in their community-based
agency, and (b) intentions to adopt practices it
promotes to them.
Test statistically whether the relationship
between trust and intentions is positive
(indicating reciprocity).
Control for influence of other relevant factors.
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 Two projects:
1. Land and Water Management
Planning (LWMP) in NSW’s Murray
Irrigation Districts - surveyed 1999.
2. Regional NRM delivery in 3 NRM
regions – surveyed 2006:
•
•
•
Fitzroy Basin (Qld)
Mallee (Vic)
South West Catchments (WA).
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Murray LWMP project
 7,490 km2; 25,000 people; 1,610 farms.
 Historic antagonism between irrigators
and NSW Government
 1991 ~ Start developing community-based
plans focused on irrigation salinity
 1996 ~ Murray Irrigation Ltd, co-owned by
irrigators, made responsible for ensuring
farmers help implement the LWMPs by
complying with their cost-sharing
commitments .
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 A significant positive relationship was
found between farmers’ intentions to
comply and their trust in their
community-based corporation
 Indicates that farmers were interacting
with CBNRM arrangements on the basis
of reciprocity
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Regional delivery project
 Fitzroy Basin Region
 156,000 km2; 200,000 people.
 CBNRM body is Fitzroy Basin Association (FBA)
 Central Highlands sub-region
 45,000 km2; 20,000 people.
 CBNRM body is Central Highlands Resources Use
Planning Cooperative (CHRRUP)
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 Mallee Region
 39,000 km2; 65,000 people.
 focused on dryland area of region.
 CBNRM body is Mallee Catchment Management
Authority.
 NRM delivery not devolved to sub-regional level
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 South West Catchments Region
 51,657 km2; 193,000 people; 5,000 farms.
 CBNRM body is South West Catchments Council.
 Blackwood Basin sub-region
 23,500 km2; 37,000 people; 2,000 farms.
 CBNRM body is Blackwood Basin Group (BBG).
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Given the
(a) greater scales of the regional-delivery
cases, compared with the LWMP case, and
(b) logic that increased scale lessens farmer
incentives to practise reciprocity,
• … Farmer reciprocity was expected to be
weaker in the regional-delivery cases
• … Although less weakened when delivery was
devolved to the sub-regional level.
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 Models were estimated for each of the 22 key
conservation practices promoted across the
three regions (7 by CHRRUP, 7 by Mallee CMA, 8
by BBG)
 Only one model (4.5%) indicated farmers were
practising reciprocity with their regional
CBNRM body
 This model was for the Mallee Region, where
farmer interaction with the regional body was
not reduced by presence of a sub-regional body
 In the two regions with sub-regional bodies, 9
of the 15 models (60%) indicated farmers were
practising reciprocity with their subregional
body
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 Devolving “NRM helping” to CBNRM
arrangements can be effective in
strengthening farmer capacities for
self-help, although this benefit
declines with increasing scale of
CBNRM
 Caveat: Conclusions based on a limited
set of cases – hypotheses only.
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Conclusions
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 The raison d’etre of community-based
NRM lies in helping people to help
themselves
 It is about making community members
more likely to reciprocate the help
given them under CBNRM
 Help from CBNRM may include
leadership, networking, R&D, financial
incentives, social incentives,
regulation, extension, etc.
 Extension is important but only part of the picture
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 We need to acknowledge, understand,
and learn systematically how to solve
the Samaritan’s Dilemma
 A “business approach” to CBNRM
requires us – at all levels - to devise
targets, milestones, program logics and
M&E strategies accordingly.
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Key points
 The raison d’etre of community-based NRM
lies in helping people to help themselves
 We need to acknowledge, understand, and
learn how to address the “Samaritan’s
Dilemma” that faces us in helping farmers’
self-help
 Targets, program logic, and M & E need, at
all levels, to change as we learn.
www.RuralPracticeChange.org
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