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DisclaimerThe University of Gloucestershire has obtained warranties from all depositors as to their title in the material deposited and as to their right to deposit such material.The University of Gloucestershire makes no representation or warranties of commercial utility, title, or fitness for a particular purpose or any other warranty, express or implied in respect of any material deposited.The University of Gloucestershire makes no representation that the use of the materials will not infringe any patent, copyright, trademark or other property or proprietary rights.The University of Gloucestershire accepts no liability for any infringement of intellectual property rights in any material deposited but will remove such material from public view pending investigation in the event of an allegation of any such infringement. Published in Land Use Policy, and available online at: PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR TEXT. This ishttp://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264837712001317We recommend you cite the published (post-print) version.The URL for the published version is http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2012.07.007 DisclaimerThe University of Gloucestershire has obtained warranties from all depositors as to their title in the material deposited and as to their right to deposit such material.The University of Gloucestershire makes no representation or warranties of commercial utility, title, or fitness for a particular purpose or any other warranty, express or implied in respect of any material deposited.The University of Gloucestershire makes no representation that the use of the materials will not infringe any patent, copyright, trademark or other property or proprietary rights.The University of Gloucestershire accepts no liability for any infringement of intellectual property rights in any material deposited but will remove such material from public view pending investigation in the event of an allegation of any such infringement. PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR TEXT. INTRODUCTIONVoluntary agri-environment schemes (AES) in the UK are a key policy instrument for the delivery of sustainable management of the countryside. These schemes are central to the Rural Development Programmes of European Union member states, and their significance is reflected in their rapidly increasing budget since the mid-1990s and in their extensive coverage across European agricultural land (Espinosa-Goded, et al., 2010;Riley, 2011). Current negotiations suggest that scheme payments to farmers for providing environmental benefits are set to remain an important support tool in the post-2013 Common Agricultural Policy (European Commission, 2010).Farmers have a central role to play in implementing AES and understanding motivations for participation in these voluntary schemes is therefore crucial in any investigation of their effectiveness. Researchers have extensively debated the significance of a number of different influences on, and motivations for, AES participation including characteristics of the farmer; situational characteristics of t...

This paper examines farmers' motivations for voluntary unsubsidised practices that benefit the environment. It identifies amongst a group of English farmers the amount of unsubsidised environmental activities on mainly arable land, and explores the extent to which motivations are extrinsic and intrinsic for undertaking this unsubsidised activity. Using responses from a national survey in England of 1,345 farmers, in-depth face-to-face interviews with 60 farmers and an analysis of existing agri-environment scheme data, the extent to which subsidised and unsubsidised environmental activity is undertaken on arable land was identified. Furthermore, it was also possible to identify and compare the motivations behind subsidised and unsubsidised environmental activity and to understand the interaction between these two types of activity at the farm scale. The research found that around 25% of all environmental activity undertaken on arable farms in England is unsubsidised, although some of this activity sits alongside subsidised activity. There were clear differences between the motivations for undertaking subsidised and unsubsidised environmental activities. Financial reasons dominated farmers' motivations for engaging in subsidised agri-environment scheme practices, whilst agronomic and environmental motivations were of greater importance for unsubsidised activity. Data analysis also revealed oversubscription in agri-environment schemes, with a considerable amount of environmental activity occurring without payment. From a policy perspective it is helpful to understand motivations for existing unsubsidised environmental activity as this can inform the design of advice and message framing to encourage uptake of more widespread voluntary environmental behaviour.