Productivity, changes and resilience in New Zealand grassland agriculture over the last three decades

Abstract

This paper discusses key changes in New Zealand pastoral agriculture over the last three decades at the national scale, and how these have influenced the performance of grasslands, animal productivity, and the resilience of pastoral livestock systems. It assesses the positive and negative impacts of land-use change, changes in pasture production and supplementary feeding and dry matter (DM) consumed, and the key management practices implemented by farmers to enhance farm system resilience. It also notes environmental and other policy changes and examines how sectors and Government have started to respond. The largest estimated increase in DM consumed by livestock from 1990 to 2018 was from increased supplementary feed in the dairy sector. The largest estimated decline in DM production was due to pasture-land conversion to planted forests, followed by weed and pest impacts. In 2018, the dairy sector consumed the most DM at an estimated 25.0M t/yr, followed by sheep at 16.6M t/yr and beef at 10.1M t/yr. The total consumed DM in 2018 was 51.9 M t/yr which corresponds well with the independently estimated national pasture DM production of 64M t/yr. The environmental impacts of managements to enhance resilience in DM availability are becoming evident and future regulations may limit the extent some of these practices can expand.