Market-oriented initiatives for agri-environmental governance: environmental management systems in Australia

A range of environmental and social problems are concomitants of conventional high-input/high-output approaches to the production of food, including land and water degradation, falling farm incomes and exits from farming (e.g. Buttel et al. 1990; Goodman and Watts 1997; Gray and Lawrence 2001; Cocklin 2005). The externalisation of environmental and social impacts has, in many countries. prompted the state to correct this market failure through various forms of support to farmers and the farming sector more broadly. In Europe, this support has been manifested in a range of agrienvironmental programmes aimed at promoting multi-functional landscapes (see Ilbery and Bowler 1998; Wilson 2001; Potter and Burney 2002). Australia has taken a somewhat different approach. Consistent with the neoliberalist promotion of entrepreneurial and 'self-reliant' farmers (Higgins 2002), state agencies have sought to facilitate participatory and 'bottom-up' solutions that address the negative environmental consequences associated with productivist agriculture. The National Landcare Program (NLP) and Property Management Planning (PMP) represent the main vehicles of agri~environmental governance (Campbell 1994; Curtis and De Lacy 1996; Lockie and Vanc1ay 2000).