Document library

This digital library of resources is aimed at helping primary producers and businesses understand and respond to the challenges and opportunities presented by climate change.

Each resource summarises a climate change risk assessment, impact assessment or adaptation research project funded by the Ministry for Primary Industries’ SLMACC programme.

Sustainable Land Management and Climate Change (SLMACC) programme

Individual projects funded by SLMACC are led by a range of expert bodies, including Crown Research Institutes, universities and industry organisations.

Showing 19-27 of 27 documents

Overview
Cropping: Managing in a changing climate
Overview of the general impacts – some positive, some negative – that a warming climate will have on arable cropping in New Zealand.
November 2010

PDF 250kB

Case study
Drought: Learning from the past
Outlines a study conducted in 2008 by AgResearch on how farming communities in North Otago and South Canterbury adapted to and coped with severe droughts that occurred in 1988-89 and 1997-99. Includes preparation and coping strategies for future droughts.
November 2010

PDF 212kB

Case study
Focus on sustainability: A Hawke’s Bay hill country farm
Study of how the owners of a Hawkes Bay beef and sheep farm have invested in a low cost/low input farm system, with reduced profitability, to build resilience and sustainability in a changing climate. Changes were in response to a 2007 drought, which had severe financial impacts on the farm.
November 2010

PDF 552kB

Case study
Hawkes Bay cropping farm: Optimising irrigation in a drought-prone region
Describes how Hawkes Bay mixed-cropping farmer, Hugh Ritchie, is using a range of energy, water-use and soil- and crop-management strategies to prepare for a predicted rise in regional temperatures and reduction in rainfall – particularly in winter and spring.
November 2010

PDF 391kB

Case study
Managing climate change: Farming in the high country
Haldon Station is a large, commercially-diverse high-country sheep, beef and deer farm in the Mackenzie Country, where the climate is extreme and variable. This case study describes how the manager has diversified and intensified the business to reduce risk and ensure sustainability.
November 2010

PDF 346kB

Case study
Monitoring and planning: Maintaining production in a changing climate
Waikato dairy farmer, Hamish Putt, monitors soil moisture, soil temperature and pasture growth to ensure he can respond effectively to variable weather and a changing climate. This case study describes the range of management strategies he uses to maintain production.
November 2010

PDF 229kB

Advisory
Plantation forests: Risk management within a changing climate
Forestry is subject to a unique set of risks associated with weather and climate: fire, wind damage and incursions from pests and diseases. These risks are likely to change as the climate changes. This document outlines prevention and response strategies developed by Timberlands in 2010.
November 2010

PDF 425kB

Overview
Climate change: A guide for land managers – the theory, the history, the science
An overview of Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) knowledge about climate change, including a summary of the science and its development, the contribution of human activities to climate change, possible responses, and sources of more information.
August 2009

PDF 2.9MB

Case study
Bay of Plenty kiwifruit orchard: Balancing climate concerns with market realities
Outlines how profitability and environmental concerns, particularly climate change, are reflected in the balance of organic and conventional production practices used on Peter and Gwen Ombler’s kiwifruit and plum orchard at Welcome Bay, Tauranga.
May 2009

PDF 5.9MB

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