Abstract

In early 1993, the DLWC initiated a project to develop regional planning strategies for clearing and cultivation activities in the Southern Mallee and Northern Floodplain areas of the Western Division of NSW. Concentrating on the Southern Mallee region, a benefit-cost analysis of current clearing and cultivation proposals and their impact on the financial viability of the individual landholder has been conducted. While the development proposals all had the potential to return much higher levels of expected net income to farmers than the existing extensive grazing strategy, market and climatic uncertainty meant that the probability of the extensive grazing activity returning more than cropping was as high as 50% for some proposals. This means that farmers have to weigh up higher incomes on average from cropping against the more certain income from grazing. Clearly, this is a personal choice with the more risk averse decision makers favouring the extensive grazing option. However, we found that for levels of risk aversion that research suggests typifies Australian farmers, the development proposals were dominant over the extensive grazing option except where there was a higher proportion of land devoted to conservation at a discount rate of 12%. No attempt has been made in the present study to evaluate the public benefits and costs, in the form of changes in environmental resources, associated with such development proposals Key words: Western Division, conservation, clearing and cultivation, stochastic dominance, economics.