A new study says some farmers are getting significantly greater production on their farms without increasing the environmental impact from greenhouse gas emissions or nitrogen leaching.
The Motu Economic and Public Policy Research study uses data from more than 260 farms to estimate the potential for reducing emissions and leaching.
It suggests that if less efficient farmers adopt the better management practices and technology use of the top performers, they could reduce nitrogen leaching by up to 30% or more, and greenhouse gas emissions by more than 15% per unit of production.
Motu senior fellow Dr Suzi Kerr says a lot of it boils down to what individual farmers are doing.
In the case of nitrogen-leaching causing water-quality issues, some farmers were getting 50kg of milk solids for each kilogram of damaging nitrogen, but others were getting only 20kg of milk solids - twice as much milk for the same amount of damage.
"Most of that difference ... is to do with the farmers being different," Dr Kerr says.
Dr Kerr says the reasons why some farmers are doing so much better than others at limiting green house gas emissions and nitrogen leaching are still not clear.
She says that needs to be the focus of further research.
