Abstract
The ARGOS (Agriculture Research Group on Sustainability) project was designed to enable the interrogation of the condition of sustainability in the New Zealand agriculture sector. To account for the country’s reliance on a neoliberal (or market driven) policy orientation, the research programme compares groups of producers organised into panels whose members comply with similar audit schemes that regulate entrance into high value export markets. Because these audit schemes often include criteria or standards associated with improved environmental or social practice, comparison of the panels on the basis of economic, environmental and social measures and indicators provides insight to the potential for such schemes to promote a more sustainable agriculture sector in New Zealand. To the extent that such schemes do influence practice, we would expect to differentiate among the panels in reference to such criteria. As part of the overall ARGOS analysis, this report provides a synthesis of the social research conducted within the project and contributes to the examination of the ARGOS null hypothesis, namely that there is no significant difference in the economic, environmental and social dimensions and characteristics of the participating farms and orchards. The report’s main objectives are to assess both the extent to which it is possible to differentiate among the management system panels of ARGOS farms/orchards and how such difference is manifest in the social dimensions of farm life. To the extent that this analysis provides evidence to reject the null hypothesis, it is possible to inform understandings of agricultural sustainability as well as provide insight to the potential pathways to improving this condition.