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In Finland, water conservation policy sets equal incentive regardless of the condition of the environment. Before any policy reform, it is vital to investigate landowners' tendency for adoption. In this study we were particularly interested in examining the tendency for adoption if the soil quality implies a high leaching risk or water quality is already poor. For this purpose, survey data were combined with GIS data. Furthermore the aim was to analyse the effect of farm and farmer characteristics and attitudes on adoption. The findings derived by probit models indicated that, for active farmers, financial variables were the key determinants. For passive owners, adoption was also explained by attitudes. Contrary to our expectations, there is no spontaneous tendency for water conservation in deteriorated areas. Targeted agri-environmental measures, even though costly, cannot be avoided.

In order to integrate ecosystem services (ES) in designing agri-environmental policy, we investigated both the demand for, and supply of, ES from agricultural environments in Finland. Using the discrete choice experiment method, we measured citizens’ willingness to pay (WTP) for four different ES and analysed farmers’ compensation request (willingness to accept [WTA]) for producing these services. Biodiversity and water quality gathered the highest WTA of farmers, but also the highest WTP of citizens. Overall, the average WTA exceeded the WTP for almost all attributes and levels, but 20–27 per cent of farmers were willing to produce the ES with the compensation lower than citizens’ WTP.

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