Farmer preferences for adopting precision farming technologies: a case study from Italy (original) (raw)
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Adoption of Precision Farming Tools: The Case of Italian Farmers
International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
The process of adopting innovation, especially with regard to precision farming (PF), is inherently complex and social, and influenced by producers, change agents, social norms and organizational pressure. An empirical analysis was conducted among Italian farmers to measure the drivers and clarify “bottlenecks” in the adoption of agricultural innovation. The purpose of this study was to analyze the socio-structural and complexity factors that affect the probability to adopt innovations and the determinants that drive an individual’s decisions. Preliminary results found high levels of adoption among younger farmers, those that had a high level of education, those with high intensity of information, with large farm sizes, and high labor intensity. A logit model was used to understand the role played by labor intensity and perceived in the adoption process. In light of the Common Agricultural Policy Reform post 2020, the findings suggest relevant policy implications, such as the need t...
Exploring the adoption of precision agricultural technologies: A cross regional study of EU farmers
Land Use Policy, 2019
Precision agricultural technologies (PATs) allow more detailed management of in-field variability. Policy and advisory communities have championed PATs as a route to preserving natural capital whilst increasing productivity from agricultural land. A range of PATs are currently available for the agricultural producer but uptake varies by the type of technology and region. Whereas most studies on uptake have focused on US or Australia we empirically examine uptake of machine guidance (MG) and variable rate nitrogen technologies (VRNT) within European farming systems. Using primary information from 971 arable crop growers across five countries: Belgium, Germany, Greece, the Netherlands and the UK, a multilevel random intercept regression estimated a) the differences between adoption and non-adoption and b) the differences between VRNT and MG adoption. We find, aside from size and income differences, which reflect the economic cost barrier to adoption, an attitudinal difference, in terms of optimism towards the technology's economic return leading to more probability of uptake. Moreover innovative and information seeking behaviour also proved significant when upgrading from machine guidance to variable rate technologies. Subsidy and taxation were considered positive drivers of uptake within the community. However, results suggest that more indirect interventions, such as informational support to counteract industry bias, and demonstration to prove the viability of economic return may be effective at meeting land manager and policy expectations towards PATs.
A Multinomial Logit Analysis of the Adoption of Cotton Precision Farming Technologies
2011
Precision agriculture is gaining acceptance all over the world as a management strategy that increases the input use efficiency and reduces the negative environmental impacts of intensive agriculture production. Even with these advantages, the rate of adoption of precision agriculture practices is low in the US especially among the cotton producers. Using farm level data from the2009 Southern Precision farming Survey, this study analyses the farm and farmer characteristics that influence the adoption of specific variability detection technologies by the cotton farmers in the southern United States. A multinomial logit model with different technologies to detect field variability as choices was used to analyze the data. The results indicated that cotton farmers in Texas are less likely to adopt cotton yield monitor or employing a consultant to detect field variability, whereas they are more likely to use soil survey maps compared to other southern states. Younger farmers with higher ...
INFORMATION AND THE ADOPTION OF PRECISION FARMING TECHNOLOGIES
2003
Precision farming technologies have been commercially available since the early 1990s, but the pace of adoption among U.S. farmers has been modest. This study examines the relationship between the adoption of diagnostic and application techniques of precision farming and sources of information available to farmers about precision farming. The model used in the analysis accounts for sources of self-selection in
Precision Agriculture , 2019
Precision agricultural technologies (PA) such as global positioning system tools have been commercially available since the early 1990s and they are widely thought to have environmental and economic benefit; however, adoption studies show uneven adoption among farmers in the U.S. and Europe. This study aims to tackle a lingering puzzle regarding why some farmers adopt precision agriculture as an approach to food production and why others do not. The specific objective of this study is to examine the social and biophysical determinants of farmers’ adoption of PA. This paper fills a research gap by including measurements of farmer identity—specifically their own conceptions of their role in the food system—as well as their perceptions of biophysical risks as these relate to the adoption of PA among a large sample of Midwestern U.S. farmers. The study has identified that farmer identity and perceptions of environmental risk do indeed influence PA adoption and that these considerations ought to be incorporated into further studies of PA adoption in other jurisdictions. The findings also appear to highlight the social force of policy and industry efforts to frame PA as not only good for productivity and efficiency but also as an ecologically beneficial technology.
Precision Farming: Barriers of Variable Rate Technology Adoption in Italy
Land
Research dealing with the adoption of various precision agriculture technologies has shown that guidance and recording tools are more widespread than reactive ones (such as variable rate technology), with much lower utilization rates in European case studies. This study aims to analyze the propensity to innovate variable rate technologies among young Italian farmers. A cluster analysis was carried out revealing four groups. The first two groups represent non-adopters who think technological innovation is very complex from a technical point of view, as well as not very accessible as capital-intensive technology. The third and fourth groups represent adopters. The third reports an early level of adoption, still considering the cost of access a major barrier to technology implementation. The fourth, on the other hand, shows a more intensive level and considers the lack of institutional support a major limitation. The cluster with the most intensive adoption is characterized by the youn...
Relative advantage and complexity: Predicting the rate of adoption of agricultural innovations
Frontiers in Agronomy
The adoption of new technologies and practices is fundamental to having the capacity to adapt to climate change and ameliorate resource degradation. Consequently, having the ability to predict the scale and rate of adoption by farmers of agricultural innovations is central to gauging their adaptive capacity. It is also crucial to assessing the likely compliance of farmers with change-seeking incentives and regulations. In this paper we describe a novel approach to predicting rates of adoption with respect to agricultural technologies and practices drawing on a dual-process model of consumer decision-making and a method for describing the complexity of innovations in farm systems. We tested the approach using data collected through a survey of dairy farmers in the Waikato and Waipa regions of New Zealand. In the survey we asked 200 farmers, chosen at random, about their perceptions of the complexity and relative advantage of various agricultural and resource management practices, and...
Sustainability
Stakeholders have become worried about the environmental problems of agricultural production activities. Therefore, there is pressure on smallholder farmers to observe environmental regulations and embed sustainable green technologies in their production. The literature on green production has thoroughly emphasized the critical role of behavioral factors in adopting environmental sustainability practices. We develop a probabilistic linguistic preference selection index method to assess the behavioral constructs that promote the adoption of agricultural green production technologies (AGPTs) among smallholder rice farmers in an emerging economy. The result shows that the five most-important factors promoting the adoption of AGPTs include knowledge (0.828), perceived cost and benefit (0.819), descriptive norm (0.810), moral and environmental concern (0.809), and injunctive norm (0.807). The study findings offer insightful directions for examining rice farmers’ decisions on the adoption...
Agronomy, 2021
Even though a broad range of technologies for variable rate application of nitrogen fertiliser is available, there are hardly any documented cases of their use in Austria. In this study, the drivers and barriers of adoption have been investigated. A survey of 242 farmers in Lower Austria was conducted. The survey covered the farmers’ economic situation, concerns, and expectations regarding the future of their farms and their interest in precision farming technologies. A choice experiment was included in the survey to elicit farmers’ preferences for different features of variable rate application technologies. A series of multinomial logit, mixed logit and latent class logit models were run to analyze the choice experiment. Most farmers were interested in variable rate application, whereas technology costs, yield and environmental improvements were found to be important drivers of adoption. Also, farm size, farming system, technological level and network activities seem to play an im...
Willingness to Adopt Technologies of Precision Agriculture: A Case Study of the Czech Republic
Water Resources Management, 2017
The idea of precision agriculture is to optimize production inputs (fertilizers, irrigation water, etc.) when trying to achieve desired harvest. More targeted use of inputs is expected to benefit for the environment, including quality of underground water. It can be said to contribute to reconciling a situation frequently occurring in watershed, where the need to sustain high quality of water resources has to be balanced with other interests related to land-use. Technologies are available. Nevertheless, availability of technologies is a precondition necessary, but not sufficient. As in other cases, their practical implementation is influenced by many socio-economic and cultural factors, making any application site-specific. This paper builds on results of a sociological questionnaire survey conducted in selected rural areas of the Czech Republic. It tries to respond to the question to which extent factors such as tradition, overall economic situation, economic power of a farm and pe...