Diffuse pollution of watercourses from agriculture represents a complex and persistent environmental problem in the UK. This paper provides insights into why UK policy interventions have had limited success to date, drawing on the disciplines of psychology, sociology and behavioural economics to more thoroughly understand farmer attitudes and behaviours towards pollution mitigation. Our analysis is based on eliciting the opinions of commercial farmers through a series of surveys and discussion groups in three catchments: the grassland dominated River Eden catchment; the arable dominated River Wensum catchment and the mixed farming area of the Hampshire River Avon catchment. Results strongly suggest that a fundamental shift in identities, normative behavioural beliefs and social norms is required within the farming community before mitigation behaviours become embedded. Simply offering financial incentives or imposing regulatory penalties is unlikely to achieve the desired results. Double loop learning has the potential to enable farmers to migrate from a productivist to a multifunctional outlook where pollution mitigation becomes internalised within a farm management system. Expert farm advisors will be required to facilitate this process.

Here, we address flaws in existing approaches to farmer behavioral change which place undue attention on the individual. Rather, we argue for a more distributed understanding of farmer decision‐making behavior, which includes all relevant actors within a farmers’ “ring of confidence” in projects.

General rightsThis document is made available in accordance with publisher policies. Please cite only the published version using the reference above. Full terms of use are available: http://www.bristol.ac.uk/pure/about/ebr-terms suggesting that costs continue to represent a principal selection criterion for many farmers. 34The 29 measures were mapped onto relevant major farm types and input, assuming 95%

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