Adoption of Environmentally Friendly Practices and Farmer Well‐being in Aotearoa New Zealand

By adopting environmentally friendly practices, farmers can help mitigate on‐going environmental challenges with respect to climate change, water quality and biodiversity. However, amidst mounting pressures to adopt such practices, farmer mental health and well‐being have become a significant concern. There is little research into the relationship between farmer well‐being and the uptake of environmentally friendly practices. In this article, we utilise the Survey of Rural Decision Makers to measure current farmer well‐being in Aotearoa New Zealand and investigate its relationship with previous and intended future uptake of environmentally friendly practices. We investigate five areas of practice, which comprehensively cover the main areas of environmental concern on farms: reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, increasing native biodiversity, improving the health of waterways, reducing soil erosion, and managing biosecurity. We find that past adoption of practices to lower GHG emissions and increase biodiversity is positively associated with well‐being. We do not find evidence that well‐being is associated with future intention to adopt those practices. This study contributes to understanding the role well‐being plays in the uptake of environmentally friendly practices and whether well‐being should explicitly be included in the design of programmes aimed at improving the environmental performance of farms.