Some recent research I've been looking at in Vermont is focusing on the question of water quality particularly the persistent algae blooms that we see in Lake Champlain during the late summers, that green scum that covers the lake.

Well that has serious consequences for ecosystems, for tourism and recreation and for economics. So part of my research really looks at actually how we govern these systems. I'm really interested in governance as a concept and governance can basically be distilled down to how we make decisions and set priorities and particularly how our public policies and how we allocate resources though our public policies to alter or inform or influence behaviors.

One of the things that we've found, you know, agriculture in Vermont is incredibly important and should remain important but it's also one of the main contributors to the algae bloom problem and water quality challenges that we face as a state.

As we've studied farmer behavior, one of the major findings we've found is that what really matters most to them, as to whether they employ these best management practices, is whether they feel like they can own that practice, whether they have the expertise to manage it. It's sort of the old analogy, its better to teach a man to fish than to give him a fish, and that's holding true through our research.