From words to deeds: enforcing farmers' conservation cost-sharing commitments

Compliance with many agri-environmental programs fails to meet expectations due to enforcement difficulties. One response has been devolution of enforcement rights and responsibilities to industry organisations. This kind of response is based on a belief that farmers cooperate more with their industry organisations than with government in ensuring compliance, both in terms of sanctioning one another's compliance and supporting their organisations in providing third-party sanctioning. A case study involving complementary use of qualitative and quantitative research methods was undertaken to assess this belief. The case involves farmers in the central-Murray region of New South Wales in Australia faced with potentially worsening problems of irrigation salinity and waterlogging. Their jointly owned irrigation company has been devolved responsibility for enforcing implementation of collective action plans the farmers have developed and agreed to carry out. The case study revealed inter alia that the farmers are more prepared to support sanctioning from their company than they would be from government, but that—at least at this early stage of the implementation process—they remain reluctant to directly punish one another's non-compliance through peer pressure or other informal mechanisms.