Socio-psychological and management drivers explain farm level wheat yield gaps in Australia

Abstract

Achieving sustainable global food security for a rapidly growing world population is one of the greatest challenges of our time. Producing more food efficiently by closing the yield gaps is regarded as a promising solution to address this challenge without further expanding farming land. However, there is limited understanding of the causes contributing to yield gaps. The present study aimed to comprehensively examine three dimensions of the causes for the wheat yield gaps in Australia: farm management practices, farm characteristics and grower characteristics. Computer-assisted telephone interviews of 232 wheat producers from 14 contrasting local areas were conducted. The data collected on these three dimensions were used to develop a comprehensive framework to understand causes of yield gaps. Results reveal significant differences between farms with smaller yield gaps and those with greater yield gaps in relation to farming management as well as farm and grower characteristics. Findings further underline that farms with smaller yield gaps are likely to be smaller holdings growing less wheat on more favourable soil types, are more likely to apply more N fertiliser, to have a greater crop diversity, to soil-test a greater proportion of their fields, to have fewer resistant weeds, to adopt new technologies, and are less likely to grow wheat following either cereal crops or a pasture. They are more likely to use and trust a fee-for-service agronomist, and have a university education. The dynamic relationships between grower characteristics and farm management practices in causing yield gaps are further highlighted through a path analysis. This study is the first to demonstrate that yield gaps are the result of the intertwined dynamics between biophysical factors, grower socio-psychological characteristics and farm management practices. Socio-psychological factors not only directly contribute to yield gaps, but they also influence farm management practices that in turn contribute to yield gaps. Our findings suggest that, to close wheat yield gaps, it is important to develop integrated strategies that address both socio-psychological and farm management dimensions.

Yield potential determines Australian wheat growers’ capacity to close yield gaps while mitigating economic risk

“…Overall, there is an opportunity to increase profit and reduce risk at all four levels of farmer risk aversion with higher N applications in combination with better fallow weed management and optimising site-and variety-specific sowing times. Our study builds on the work conducted by others (Cassman et al 2003;Hochman and Horan 2018;Van Dijk et al 2017;Van Ittersum et al 2013;Zhang et al 2019) on the importance, magnitude and cause of crop yield gaps by overlaying an economic risk aversion analysis to their conclusions. We confirm the role that risk and risk aversion play in many cropping regions by reducing investment in inputs that consequently reduce average production and profit (Monjardino et al 2013(Monjardino et al , 2015.…”

“…To gain insight into why yield-optimising practices are not more widely adopted, 232 farmers from 14 grain-growing statistical local areas (SA2s) in seven GRDC 1 subregions were interviewed (Zhang et al 2019) (Fig. 1).…”

“…Such decisions require good agronomic knowledge which can be improved by spending resources on agronomic consultants and/or self-education. Thus, agronomic efficiency is also dependent on psycho-social factors (Zhang et al 2019). By using simulation to calculate yields at various input levels, we remove the agronomic yield gap from our calculations to enable us to focus on the socio-economic yield gap or the difference between Yw and Yse.…”

Toward a Better Understanding of Genotype × Environment × Management Interactions—A Global Wheat Initiative Agronomic Research Strategy

“…Economic yield is the yield attained by farmers given the prevailing weather, but inputs and practices are applied at the economic optimum (maximizing margin), which may not necessarily coincide with the levels that produce a maximum yield. This remains at approximately 75-85% of potential yield or water limited potential yield (Zhang et al, 2019). The difference between economic yield and farm yield is the exploitable yield gap.…”

“…Wheat production is challenged not only by changes in climate and the extreme growing conditions that could accompany predictions for climate change, but also by changing disease and insect pressures (Figueroa et al, 2018) and management (Zhang et al, 2019). Wheat breeding programs, both public and private, have and will continue to develop new varieties with higher yield potential in the current production conditions and improved resistance to current economic disease and pest problems.…”