Executive Summary
- This study stems from the common farmer complaint, that there are too many perennial ryegrass options on the market, this number conservatively estimated at over 50, with a few and limited tools available to farmers to aid them with variety choice for their pasture renewal programme.
- A survey is conducted of 16 Dairy Women’s Network Regional Group Convenors in semi-structured, conversational format and previous industry surveys were reviewed to provide insight into how decisions are made based on the limited resources.
- Predictions that farmers largely rely on ‘people’ sources to assist their decision making processes were confirmed. While not hypothesized, the information shared at farmer discussion groups and ‘over -the-fence’ style conversations ranked highly as a valued information source.
- Information gathered and the ‘Diffusion of Innovations’ model of Rogers (5th Edition, 2003) was used to create a matrix of predicted response to methods of transferring information about perennial ryegrass variety by farmer segment to provide useful paths for a Seed Company to target the specific groups.
