Professor Geoff Cockfield

Fields of Research (FoR)

• Agricultural Land Management ( 070101 )
  

• Public Policy ( 160510 )
  

• Natural Resource Management ( 050209 )
  

Research interests
Agricultural policy
Natural resources management policy
Environmental politics
Australian politics

Professional memberships
Australian Political Studies Association
Australian Rangeland Society
European Consortium for Political Research

USQ Research affiliations

• Institute for Resilient Regions (IRR)
  

• Rural Economies Centre of Excellence (RECE)
  

• Centre for Sustainable Agricultural Systems (CSAS)
  

Research most recent
1. Cockfield, Geoff, Courtenay Botterill, Linda and Simon Kelly (2018) A prospective evaluation of contingent loans as a means of financing wild dog exclusion fences, The Rangeland Journal, 40 (6): 591-601.
2. Cockfield, G. and L.C. Botterill (2018) ‘Agricultural and Rural Policy in Australia’ in Meyers, William H and Thomas H Johnson Handbook on International Food and Agricultural Policy, Volume I: Policies for Agricultural Markets and Rural Economic Activity World Scientific.
3. Maraseni, Tek Narayan, Son, Hoang Lien, Cockfield, Geoff, Duy, Hung Vu and Tran Dai Nghia (2017) Comparing the financial returns from acacia plantations with different plantation densities and rotation ages in Vietnam, Forestry Policy and Economics, 83: 80-87.

Research most notable
Botterill, Linda Courtenay and Geoff Cockfield (2016) ‘The relative importance of landscape amenity and health impacts in the wind farm debate in Australia’ Journal of Environmental Policy and Planning 18(4): 447-462.
Maraseni, T. N. and G. Cockfield (2015) The financial implications of converting farmland to state-supported environmental plantings in the Darling Downs Region, Queensland, Agricultural Systems, 135, 57-65.

Williams, A., White, N., Mushtaq, S., Cockfield, G., Power, B & Kouadio, L. (2015), Quantifying the response of cotton production in eastern Australia to climate change, Climatic Change, 129(1-2) 183-196.

Mushtaq, Shahbaz and Cockfield, Geoff and White, Neil and Jakeman, Guy (2014) ‘Modelling interactions between farm-level structural adjustment and a regional economy: a case of the Australian rice industry’, Agricultural Systems, 123: 34-42.

Cockfield, G. and L. Botterill, (2012), ‘Searching for signs of Countrymindedness: a survey of attitudes to rural industries and people’, Australian Journal of Political Science, 47(4): 609-622.

Maraseni, T. and G. Cockfield (2011) ‘Crops, cows or timber? Including carbon values in land use choices’, Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment, 140: 280-288.

Maron, M. and Cockfield, G. (2008) ‘Managing tradeoffs in landscape restoration and revegetation projects’. Ecological Applications 18(8): 2041-2049.

Publications in ePrints

Poudyal, Bishnu Hari and Maraseni, Tek and Cockfield, Geoff (2020) An assessment of the policies and practices of selective logging and timber utilisation: A case study from natural forests of Tarai Nepal and Queensland Australia. Land Use Policy, 91 (Article 104422). pp. 2-12. ISSN 0264-8377

Phimmavong, Somvang and Maraseni, Tek Narayan and Keenan, Rodney J. and Cockfield, Geoff (2019) Financial returns from collaborative investment models of Eucalyptus agroforestry plantations in Lao PDR. Land Use Policy, 87. pp. 1-11. ISSN 0264-8377

Acharya, Ram Prasad and Maraseni, Tek and Cockfield, Geoff (2019) Global trend of forest ecosystem services valuation – An analysis of publications. Ecosystem Services, 39 (Article - 100979). pp. 1-11.

Poudyal, Bishnu Hari and Maraseni, Tek Narayan and Cockfield, Geoff (2019) Impacts of forest management on tree species richness and composition:Assessment of forest management regimes in Tarai landscape Nepal. Applied Geography, 111 (Article 102078). pp. 1-11. ISSN 0143-6228

Poudyal, Bishnu Hari and Maraseni, Tek Narayan and Cockfield, Geoff (2019) Implications of selective harvesting of natural forests for forest product recovery and forest carbon emissions: cases from Tarai Nepal and Queensland Australia. Forests, 10 (8 - Article 693).

View full listing in ePrints

Approved research supervisor in the area of:

• Agricultural Land Management ( 070101 )
  

• Public Policy ( 160510 )
  

• Natural Resource Management ( 050209 )
  

Research topics

• Options for Improving the Efficiency of Kangaroo Harvesting
  

• An Economic Cost-Benefit Analyses of Cluster Fencing in Livestock Production Lands
  

• Livestock Productivity Benefits Associated With Cluster Fencing
  

• An Economic Evaluation of Pest Animal Control Measures in Rangeland Grazing Systems
  

I am the Executive Director of the Institute for Resilient Regions and Director of the Centre for Sustainable Agricultural Systems at USQ. Before starting an academic career I worked in agricultural industries and rural journalism. My scholarly research has largely been about agricultural policy and natural resources management and policy. Externally funded research projects have included: evaluating the prospects for increasing rice and cotton production in northern Australia; climate change adaptation for farmers in southern Queensland and northern NSW; financing wild dog exclusion fences in western Queensland; the financial implications of carbon sequestration projects on grazing properties in western NSW; and improving forestry policies in the Lao PDR and Vietnam.I also have an on-going academic interest in the National Party of Australia and its fortunes and the ideas and life of Adam Smith. I was the Fulbright Distinguished Chair in Agriculture and Life Sciences (2018-19) at Kansas State University, where I conducted a study of comparative agricultural policy in the US and Australia. For this work, I mainly focused on production insurances and related risk management instruments, producer cooperatives, conservation programs and agricultural extension, within the context of international trade rules and relationships and US and Australian domestic politics. I concluded that it will be difficult to start and maintain insurance-type programs and viable cooperatives in Australia, but that much could be done to improve the coordination of therefore effectiveness of extension services. I have also undertaken two studies of farmer decision-making in the dairy industry, using some of the concepts and findings from behavioural economics and related cognitive sciences. From this, I argue that efforts to influence farmer thinking and behaviour, rather than working from a purely rational paradigm, should also consider the widespread use of heuristics in decision-making, social identity, work preferences and family and industry cultures.