Challenge
The Government of Australia constructed a water pipeline for farmers: this project was undertaken to battle the long-term drought impacting the region.
The Department of Environment, Land, Water & Planning (DELWP) wanted to explore the perceptions of farmers in the region, to gain insights, and to develop recommendations to feed into a communications campaign about the initiative.
Approach
To better understand attitudes and opinions of farmers, Insightrix conducted an extensive survey:
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- Insightrix conducted a thorough literature review to identify factors that would differentiate groups of farmers regarding their perceptions of the pipeline.
- The survey was very detailed and contained several statements regarding respondents’ attitudes toward their farming operations and their approaches to agriculture.
- Several multivariate methods were used to add insight into the results: a factor analysis and segmentation were performed to identify farmer typologies.
Outcome
Insightrix provided the DELWP with a written report highlighting the different farmer groups and their attitudes toward the pipeline. Below are the key findings:
- Three distinct groups appeared in the data: Farming Leaders, Experimental Farmers, and Conservative Farmers. It was apparent that Conservative Farmers and Experimental Farmers were more concerned about the pipeline than Farmer Leaders.
- The main concern of the Conservative and Experimental Farmer groups were the costs of accessing the pipeline and the costs associated with on-farm infrastructure for receiving piped water.
- Advertising was conducted to address these issues. DELWP purchased print advertisements and held informational sessions around the state.
Two years after this study, the DELWP evaluated its communications campaign.
The farmers assigned to the previous segments were re-contacted and their attitudes toward the pipeline were compared to the previous baseline data.
Results of the study confirmed that the communications campaign had been effective.
The level of concern had decreased and farmers in these two groups were more positive about the pipeline.