Does intensity of change matter? Factors affecting adoption of agri-environmental schemes in Spain

Abstract

Agri-environmental schemes (AES) are the main policy instrument currently available in the EU to promote environmentally-friendly farming practices. However, the rate of adoption of these measures is still relatively low in southern Europe, and understanding how these rates can be increased is still an open issue. The goal of this paper is to increase that understanding by testing whether the factors which determine AES sign-up decisions are influenced by the intensity of change in farming practices that are brought about by adopting the scheme. A micro-economic model reflecting farmer AES sign-up decisions is proposed and applied to two schemes in Spain respectively requiring major or minor intensity of change in practices by surveying farmers eligible for both schemes. The results show that farm structural factors play a role when major practice change is required by the scheme, yet when dealing with minor change, individual farmer characteristics play a more determining role. Social capital and farmer attitude are important factors in both the AES surveyed. Therefore, it may be concluded that improving agronomic design would be an important tool to improve farmer participation in AES where major change is involved, whereas improved targeting and extension would help uptake for AES involving a lesser degree of change.agri-environmental schemes, adoption models, measure intensity, Spain,

What drives farmers’ participation in EU agri-environmental schemes?: Results from a qualitative meta-analysis

“…Defrancesco et al (2008), Barreiro-Hurle et al (2010) and Mathijs (2003) each found that when farm income is a high proportion of total household income, this has a negative impact on the farmers' willingness to participate in an AES. This variable also was included by Ruto and Garrod (2009) when studying farmers' willingness to sign up for short or long-term AES contracts.…”

“…They explained this result by pointing to the age of the sample of non-adopters, who tended to be younger than those farmers characterised as active participants in AES. Defrancesco et al (2008) and Barreiro-Hurle et al (2010) associated the likelihood of enrolment with the farming practices required for partipation in an AES, which in their cases were similar to those applied in more traditional low intensity farming systems and therefore more familiar to older farmers as well as being relatively easy to implement. The findings of Polman and Slangen (2008) and Peerlings and Polman (2009) did not support this conclusion.…”

“…Ducos et al (2009) noted that machinery ownership might decrease participation by increasing the transaction costs associated with AES implementation. Similarly, Barreiro-Hurle et al (2010) reported that farms that were more focused on cereal production, where there is often heavy investment in machinery, were less willing to adopt an AES.…”

Declining Education Levels in Young Male Farmers in Southwestern Ontario

“…Some researchers, for example, have demonstrated that younger farmers are more likely than older farmers to participate in agri-environmental initiatives (Wynn et al, 2001;Murphy et al, 2011) and adopt new technologies (D'Souza et al, 1993). Other studies have found evidence for the opposite trend (Hoover and Wiitala, 1980;Abd-Ella et al, 1981;Lasley and Nolan, 1981;Barreiro-Hurlé et al, 2010) as well as for no relationship either way between age and adoption of conservation practices (Carlson et al, 1981;Wilson, 1997;Finger and Lehmann, 2012).…”

“…shown, for example, to enhance the adoption of organic farming (Best, 2009), participation in agri-environmental schemes (Lambert et al, 2007;Barreiro-Hurlé et al, 2010), and investment in sustainability measures (Jay, 2005). Yet again, other studies found no or an inverse relationship between the degree of education and environmental behavior in farmers (see Burton, 2014).…”