Farmer environmental attitudes and ESA participation (original) (raw)
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Farmers with Attitudes (to the Environment and Agri-environment Schemes)
2017
Decisions made by farmers have a strong impact on the environment. One of the goals of agri-environment schemes (AESs) is to influence farmers into making positive contributions to the environment. They are generally voluntary and encourage farmers to participate by paying them for the provision of environmental services. It is important to understand the drivers of farmer behaviour and the choices they make with regards to AESs as this will aid policy makers in creating schemes that have a wider scope and achieve goals. Using Ireland as a case-study, this paper examines farmers’ attitudes to farming, the environment and AESs. A number of attitudinal statements put to 1000 Irish farmers are condensed to seven different attitude groups using factor analysis. These attitudinal variables, along with numerous farm and farmer characteristics, are used in a logistic regression analysis to examine their role in determining participation in AESs. This shows that attitudes especially those p...
Land Use Policy, 2021
The European Union Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) has failed to achieve its aim of preserving European farmland biodiversity, despite massive investment in subsidies to incentivise environmentally-beneficial farming practices. This failure calls into question the design of the subsidy schemes, which are intended to either function as a safety net and make farming profitable or compensate farmers for costs and loss of income while undertaking environmental management. In this study, we assess whether the design of environmental payments in the CAP reflects current knowledge about farmers' decision-making as found in the research literature. We do so on the basis of a comprehensive literature review on farmers' uptake of agri-environmental management practices over the past 10 years and interviews specifically focused on Ecological Focus Areas with policy-makers, advisors and farmers in seven European countries. We find that economic and structural factors are the most commonly-identified determinants of farmers' adoption of environmental management practices in the literature and in interviews. However, the literature suggests that these are complemented byand partially dependent ona broad range of social, attitudinal and other contextual factors that are not recognised in interview responses or, potentially, in policy design. The relatively simplistic conceptualisation of farmer behaviour that underlies some aspects of policy design may hamper the effectiveness of environmental payments in the CAP by over-emphasising economic considerations, potentially corroding farmer attitudes to policy and environmental objectives. We conclude that an urgent redesign of agricultural subsidies is needed to better align them with the economic, social and environmental factors affecting farmer decision-making in a complex production climate, and therefore to maximise potential environmental benefits.
University of Reading has completed a research project recently on behalf of Defra (Department of Food, Environment and Rural Affairs) to understand the behaviour and motivation of farmers in adjusting to the reform of the Common Agricultural Policy, particularly to the Single Payment Scheme. Interesting insights into how farmers can be expected to use the Single Payment (SP) have emerged. The Reading project has created an 'influence' model to identify the factors that are likely to determine farmers' responses, in a differentiated way, to the unprecedented event of the SP. A typology of farmers, a refined set of behavioural types, capable of providing insights into farmers' intentions with regard to the SP has been created. Data were obtained from a postal survey of a stratified (by region and farm type) random sample of 3,000 farmers in England in January 2006. Some 683 useable responses to 25 statements on “objectives” in farming, and 26 statements on “values” we...
Land Use Policy
Effectiveness of Agri-Environmental Schemes (AESs) as tools to enhance the rural environment can be achieved not only by increasing uptake rates, but also by avoiding participating farmers abandoning the scheme once they are in. For this reason, it is important to also consider what affects farmers' decisions to remain in the scheme rather than leave it at the end of the contractual obligation. However, up to now, there has been very little on this issue in the literature. The paper offers a contribution to this by revealing the role of determinants like the farmer's and farm structural characteristics, farmer's learning process, neighbourhood effect and the impact of changes in the policy design on the farmer's decision to remain in the scheme over a long time scale. This is examined in a long-standing scheme in the case study area, the Veneto Region of Italy. The paper uses duration analysis and is based on longitudinal panel-data of the entire population of 2000-2015 adopters. By using only data available in official regional records, it also provides regional policy-makers with an operational tool that is useful to analyse the impact of their AES design changes. The results of the duration models show that a larger farm size, a younger farmer age, the succession in the family farm, and the farmer's positive attitude towards the environment, trigger longer durations in AES. Similarly, the impact of the accumulation of the farmer's experience in the scheme management, as well as the neighbourhood effect increase the probability of remaining. Lastly, the changes in policy tailoring and targeting also have a positive impact on maintaining the farmer in the scheme. The paper concludes by noting that duration analysis can deliver useful results in order to guide policymakers in the effort to steer higher levels of farmers' persistence in the scheme and provides some recommendations for a more mature agro-environmental policy design.
Impact of farmer self-identity and attitudes on participation in agri-environment schemes
Land Use Policy, 2020
Influencing farmers to make positive contributions to the environment is one of the goals of agri-environment schemes (AESs). Understanding the drivers of farmer behaviour and the choices they make with regards to AESs is important as this aids policy makers in creating schemes that have a wider scope and are more likely to achieve environmental goals. Past studies have identified the importance of farmer self-identity and attitudes in decisions made on farms. Little emphasis has been put on modelling the relationship between self-identity and attitudes towards schemes and the resulting impact on participation in voluntary AESs. Using Ireland as a casestudy, this paper employs a survey of 1000 farms to look at participation in AESs through the lens of farmer perceived self-identity and their attitudes towards schemes. A relatively novel approach of combining factor analysis, to generate a self-identity typology, with an AES participation regression model is implemented. The model results suggest that self-identity and attitudes have a significant impact on AES participation. Neighbouring farmers' viewpoints also have a significant and positive impact on the participation decision made by farmers.
Recruiting the new conservationists: Farmers' adoption of agri-environmental schemes in the U.K
Journal of Rural Studies, 1995
Financial incentives available to farmers under the Government's relaunched agri-environmental policy (AEP) promise to recruit more farmers into conservation schemes than ever before. The success of these voluntary schemes, which offer payments in return for farmers agreeing to desist from certain damaging operations or carry out environmentally sensitive ones, is widely proclaimed, chiefly with reference to the promising levels of enrolment that have already been achieved under the Environmentally Sensitive Areas (ESA) programme. Increasingly, however, attention is focusing on the environmental benefits that are being achieved on the ground and their longer-term durability. This paper reports on a survey of 101 farmers in South East England conducted with a view to investigating the level of engagement of those currently enrolled in such schemes. Focusing on the motivational aspects, it points to wide variations in the level of commitment and sympathy with the wider objectives of AEP schemes and places farmers on a participation spectrum ranging from the most resistant nonadopters at one end to the most active adopters at the other. The policy implications of this categorisation are explored and recommendations made for pushing more farmers towards the active end of the spectrum.
Farmers' participation in European agri-environmental policies
2002
This paper examines the factors influencing farmers' participation in several agri-environmental schemes. A multinominal logit model is used to separate between participating and nonparticipating farmers. In addition this model allows to predict farmers participation in one measure as well as in different measures simultaneously. Data stems from a survey conducted in eight European countries and includes a description of both farmer and farm characteristics. Three categories of schemes have been analysed: landscape maintenance, biodiversity protection and restriction of intensive farming practices. The combination of these three types of schemes provides eight possible packages which can be selected by eligible farmers. The multinominal logit model shows the importance of both farm and farmer as well as attitudinal characteristics on the participation in different combinations of schemes. For instance, the environmental concern favours landscape maintenance and biodiversity protection as well as their combinations with schemes requiring restrictions of intensive practices. However, it has a negative effect on the single participation in schemes requiring restrictions of intensive practices only. Our analysis confirms a number of previous findings. In addition, it shows the importance for policy makers to take into account that farmers have the opportunity to enter several schemes simultaneously. Indeed, due to cost complementarities, joint participation provides both private and public benefits.
This paper investigates the personal and property characteristics of landowners who use EU Rural Development agri-environmental schemes (AES), as well as their motives for participation or non-participation in such schemes. The study is based on a questionnaire survey with landowners, in selected study areas in the Netherlands, Denmark, Austria, Italy and Greece. Our principal findings show that AES tend to attract more the owners of larger farms, who are frequently full-time, younger, post-primary school educated and agriculturally-trained farmers. The latter findings are contingent on local geographical particulari-ties and on subjective factors, farmers' individualities, different rural cultures, landscape types, EU and national policies and special needs of the study areas—all areas where agricultural production is increasingly marginalized, for different reasons. Subsidy scheme participation motives did not seem to be strictly economic; they also regarded personal satisfaction. They are all together generally appeared to be place specific, since the respondents from peri-urban Northern European areas were more motivated to participate in AES than respondents from Central and Southern European areas with marginal potential for agriculture. Motives for non-participation were also found to be dependent on the level of farming engagement and on case-area landscape types.