Evaluation of an Incentive Programme for Increasing Green Infrastructure on Vineyards

Abstract

Wine grape ecosystems with low species richness and reliance on agrichemicals have weak resilience to environmental impacts. Increasing biodiversity through green infrastructure (GI) not only helps mitigate some of these impacts but can provide additional benefits to growers and the public. Despite this, many vineyards have limited GI. While scholars suggest incentive programmes may help to encourage GI implementation, few studies have evaluated their effectiveness. We surveyed winegrowers and their vineyards in the Waipara Valley sub-region, New Zealand, to evaluate an incentive programme aimed at increasing GI on vineyards, particularly indigenous vegetation. The results indicated the programme was effective in encouraging growers to plant indigenous plants in areas incapable or unsuitable for growing grapes, largely in support of nature conservation, aesthetics, branding, and sales. It was less successful in encouraging growers to plant them in productive areas. While substantial GI, primarily in the form of inter-row cover crops, was managed in these areas, most were exotic plants seen by growers to provide superior services (especially erosion control, weed suppression and pest regulation) at lower management complexity and cost. Growers identified six GI enablers: (1) promoting GI types that provide greater grower services than disservices and costs of implementation and management; (2) implementing GI where biophysical conditions support success; (3) providing assistance with plant selection and design; (4) providing GI implementation and/or management funding; (5) developing GI certification policies and regional association programmes; and (6) providing government GI regulations, strategies, and incentives. They also identified five barriers: (1) insufficient grower appreciation for indigenous GI services; (2) grower concerns that some GI disservices were greater than their services; (3) grower belief that costs of GI implementation and/or management were greater than those of alternative practices; (4) harsh and remote GI growing conditions; (5) lack of grower knowledge regarding how to design plantings, especially those that could provide multiple services; and (6) lack of sufficient financial resources for GI implementation and/or management. Twenty recommendations for improving GI implementation are provided.