An evaluation of the Land and Environment Planning Toolkit for advancing soil and nutrient management on sheep and beef farms

The Land and Environment Planning (LEP) Toolkit recently re-launched by Beef + Lamb NZ is a package developed to assist the sector with resource and business planning. The toolkit includes workbooks and guidelines and consists of an introductory level (Level 1) through to more advanced Levels 2 and 3, each providing a step-by-step guide to assist farmers with on-farm business and environment planning. To date the evaluation of the toolkit has been very limited. Using a case study farm and interactive workshops, the usefulness of each of the three levels of the toolkit for tackling current and future drivers that will shape soil and nutrient management in hill country were determined. Each level was analysed against three drivers: freedom to operate, nutrient use efficiency and ability to demonstrate sustainability using a framework developed as part of the study. The findings from this research support the use of the LEP Toolkit in a stepwise approach. The introductory (la and 1b) levels of the toolkit proved useful in raising awareness, but offered little assistance in developing tailored solutions. Level 2 and 3 proved more useful in advancing soil and nutrient management by breaking the farm down into land management units on the basis of the underlying physical resources. Level 3 with the inclusion of detailed resource information allows for a comprehensive analysis of the farm across all three drivers for both business planning and if required for reporting.