Intensification of New Zealand agricultural practices is an ongoing and accelerating process which potentially threatens the environment, biodiversity and even the sustainability of agricultural production. However, neither the exact nature of this threat nor the extent of its impact has received adequate analysis. There is clear evidence that agricultural intensification has degraded aquatic biodiversity, but there is a critical lack of research and monitoring of robust indicators of terrestrial biodiversity in New Zealand production landscapes.

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Within the political economy of agriculture and agrofood literatures there are examples of approaches that reject simple dichotomies between alternatives and the mainstream. In line with such approaches, we challenge the assumption that alternative agriculture, and its attendant improved environmental practices, alternative management styles, less intensive approaches, and better approaches to animal and ecosystem welfare, is the only source of agricultural sustainability. This article uses national farm-survey results for New Zealand's sheep and beef, dairy, and horticulture sectors to examine conventional farmers, measure their assessments of farming practices, and assess their environmental orientation. Analysis identifies a proenvironmental cluster of farmers in each sector characterized by a higher environmental-orientation score and distinct ratings of other farm practices queried in the survey. We interpret the results in terms of the exposure of different agricultural sectors to the effects of market-based, audited, best-practice schemes. The presence of shades of ''greenness'' among conventional farmers has important implications for environmental management and for our understanding of the various and complex pathways toward the greening of agrofood systems.Frequently, the debates about the scope and direction of alternative agriculture have been framed in terms of simple binaries that compare

With a population of 4.5 million, New Zealand's contribution to total global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions is relatively low. On a per capita basis, however, New Zealand's GHG emissions are the fifth highest among Annex 1 countries, due in part to the relative size of the pastoral agricultural sector. Biophysical impacts of climate change will largely extend current climate trends, with high regional variability. A review of climate change literature identifies three key risks for New Zealand relating to economic connectedness, perceptions of ‘clean, green’ New Zealand, and social equity. Since 2008, New Zealand's main mitigation response has been the emissions trading scheme (NZ ETS), yet the ETS is currently providing little by way of meaningful incentives for behavior change and low‐carbon investment. Moreover, since declining to enter the second commitment period of the Kyoto protocol, engagement with global climate governance has been modest, and recently released emissions reduction targets have raised questions over New Zealand's responsibilities as a global citizen. In this paper, adaptive responses are considered in connection to key industries (agriculture, tourism) and communities (coastal, Māori), and examine the devolved structure of adaptation. Mainstream media reporting of climate change in New Zealand appears to be aligned with the scientific consensus position, yet it continues to frame climate change as a political issue, prioritizing political over scientific voices. Public perceptions of climate change provide evidence of continued uncertainty relating to human attribution, and depict climate change as a spatially distanced risk which could affect support for government action on climate change. WIREs Clim Change 2015, 6:559–583. doi: 10.1002/wcc.355 This article is categorized under: Trans‐Disciplinary Perspectives > National Reviews

Our review concludes that organic standards need to account for a broader set of criteria in order to retain claims to 'sustainability'. Measurements of the ecological, economic and social outcomes from over 96 kiwifruit, sheep/beef and dairy farms in New Zealand between 2004 and 2012 by The Agricultural Research Group on Sustainability (ARGOS) project showed some enhanced ecosystem services from organic agriculture that will assist a "land-sharing" approach for sustainable land management. However, the efficiency of provisioning services is reduced in organic systems and this potentially undermines a "land-sparing" strategy to secure food security and ecosystem services. Other aspects of the farm operation that are not considered in the organic standards sometimes had just as much or even a greater effect on ecosystem services than restriction of chemical inputs and synthetic fertilisers. An organic farming version of the New Zealand Sustainability Dashboard will integrate organic standards and wider agricultural best practice into a broad and multidimensional sustainability assessment framework and package of learning tools. There is huge variation in performance of farms within a given farming system. Therefore improving ecosystem services depends as much on locally tuned learning and adjustments of farm practice on individual farms as on uptake of organic or Integrated Management farming system protocols.