Agent Heterogeneity in Adoption of Anaerobic Digestion Technology: Integrating Economic, Diffusion, and Behavioral Innovation Theories

Bishop, Clark P.; Shumway, C. Richard; Wandschneider, Philip R.

doi:10.3368/le.86.3.585

Cited by 40 publications

(45 citation statements)

References 34 publications

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“…First, consistent with Bishop et al (2010) and Sheeder and Lynne (2011), the results here support the need for conservation policy/programs to more formally recognize that economic incentives alone do not determine the entirety of farm land and environmental stewardship. For some farmers, adopting conserving land and pest management practices just makes good business sense (Smith and Weinberg, 2004;Hopkins and Johansson, 2004); for others, moral and social values help to guide their decisions, and yet for others, conservation incentives (financial and/or technical) are required to encourage adoption (Chouinard et al, 2008;Mzoughi, 2011;and Sheeder and Lynne, 2011).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 65%

Factors influencing environmental stewardship in U.S. agriculture: Conservation program participants vs. non-participants

et al. 2015

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a b s t r a c tUnited States Department of Agriculture (USDA) conservation policy has increasingly shifted from a traditional land-retirement focus to greater emphasis on producer adoption of working-land conservation practices. This research made use of USDA integrated field/farm surveys, the Conservation Effects Assessment Project (CEAP) and Agricultural Resources Management Survey (ARMS), to (1) enhance understanding of operator, field, farm, economic, and environmental characteristic differences between conservation program participants and non-participants across a farm typology, and (2) to enhance understanding of the relative importance of these factors on influencing farm stewardship intensity in corn and wheat production, i.e., how these factors influence differences in producer adoption of alternative levels of land and pest-management practices between conservation program participants and non-participants. The research used a cost-function acreage-based technology adoption model to examine farm stewardship differences. Results indicate that program non-participants invest more heavily in land conserving and pest-management practices than program participants. Relative prices, structural, and socio-environmental factors play significantly different roles across crops, and between conservation program participants and non-participants, in their influence on producer adoption decisions for land and pest-management intensity. The environmental effectiveness and cost efficiency of conservation programs will likely improve when their implementation more explicitly recognizes farm heterogeneity as well as differences in farmer motivations for stewardship investments. Recognizing these differences can help improve targeting of conservation incentive structures.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 65%

Factors influencing environmental stewardship in U.S. agriculture: Conservation program participants vs. non-participants

et al. 2015

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“…However, evidence from other studies (Prokopy et al 2008;Sheeder and Lynne 2011) indicates that concern can be a precursor to action. Such research has examined the tension between profit motive (measured as farm size and expansion plans [Bishop et al 2010]) and prosocial, proenvironmental behavior. Evidence that declines in concern about the impacts of input use are correlated with increases in farm size suggests that profit motive may be on the rise and proclivity to engage in conservation behavior on the decline.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…While managing for sustainability is a dual motive or multiutility (Chouinard et al 2008;Bishop et al 2010;Sheeder and Lynne 2011) process that integrates both self-interest profit goals and collective conservation motives, the farmer who is on the agricultural treadmill is likely to find it very challenging to break the cycle of external input dependency and manage for the environmental impacts of those inputs. One way to manage or reconcile the tension between environmental values and production goals is to realign the priority assigned to the environmental values and move it to an uncertainty or less important cognitive category (Burke 1991;Burke and Stets 2000;McGuire 2010).…”

Section: Sustainability Of Agriculture Suggests Endurance Into the Fumentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Efforts to achieve sustainability imply a dual interest or multiutility approach (Chouinard et al 2008;Bishop et al 2010;Sheeder and Lynne 2011) to farming that balances economic, social, and environmental goals in ways that assure both viability of farm operations and protection of the natural resource base. To date, however, societal commitment to sustainability in agriculture has focused more on enhancing productivity and efficiency and less on addressing negative environmental externalities (National Research Council 2010).…”

Section: Sustainability Of Agriculture Suggests Endurance Into the Fumentioning

confidence: 99%

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Shifts in farmer uncertainty over time about sustainable farming practices and modern farming's reliance on commercial fertilizers, insecticides, and herbicides

Morton¹,

Hobbs²,

Arbuckle³

2013

Journal of Soil and Water Conservation

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Nitrogen (N) is critical for maintaining crop yields; however, current agricultural management practices are major contributors to high levels of N and other agricultural chemicals leaking into neighboring water bodies thereby limiting the achievement of sustainability goals for water resources. Changes in farmer beliefs over time about sustainability goals and production inputs reveal increasing uncertainty about the connection between sustainability and their practices. Inference from a multinomial model analysis of farmer beliefs from 1989 to 2002 shows increasing odds of being uncertain about whether use of sustainable farming practices help maintain the natural resource base. Almost 29% of the population of a 2002 random sample survey of Iowa farmers was uncertain about sustainable farming practices compared to 18.8% in 1989. Further, farmers were increasingly uncertain over time as to whether modern farming relies too heavily upon commercial fertilizers, insecticides, and herbicides. In 2002, 14.5% of farmers, compared to 8.4% in 1994 and 5.7% in 1989, were uncertain about whether heavy reliance on commercial fertilizers was a sustainability problem. Multinomial logistic regression models examining responses to various farming practices reveal that the ratio of disagree/agree increases over time and is influenced by total corn and soybean acres farmed, net of farmer age, and weather conditions. Models of uncertainty controlling for age and weather conditions show increasing farmer uncertainty about sustainable farming practices; natural resource base maintenance; and whether modern farming relies too heavily on commercial fertilizers, insecticides, and herbicides.

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“…Specifically for the context of this paper, the model predicts that a well-designed policy has to consider the dual nature of the interests, and hence neither appeal only to self-interest, nor only to the shared other-interest but rather to a joint, interdependent and nonseparable expression of both interests. Various papers have empirically tested dual interest theory and the dual motive (empirical) model it suggests, and have found substantive supporting evidence for its validity (see for example Bishop, Shumway & Wandschneider, 2010;Chouinard, Paterson, Wandschneider & Ohler, 2008;Kalinowski, Lynne & Johnson, 2006;Ovchinnikova, Czap, H., Lynne & Larimer, 2009;Sautter, Czap, N., Kruse & Lynne, 2011;Czap, N., Czap, H., Khachaturyan, Lynne & Burbach, 2012).…”

Section: Relevant Literaturementioning

confidence: 99%

Farm Bill 2014: An Experimental Investigation of Conservation Compliance

Czap

Czap²,

Lynne³

et al. 2016

JSD

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Leading up to the 2014 Farm Bill, the House of Representatives and the Senate proposed alternative changes to the incentive structure for farmer conservation efforts. While both include crop insurance subsidies, the version proposed by the Senate made such subsidies conditional on conservation efforts. This study uses experimental methods to analyze the efficacy of these two alternative designs in comparison to the previous, 2008 Farm Bill, design and investigates in how far additional nudging for empathy can improve on the efficiency. The results support the contention that solely offering financial incentives, as is the case in the 2014 Farm Bill, leads to crowding-out of intrinsic motivations and hence may be counterproductive. Similarly, nudging for empathy by itself is relatively ineffective. Nudging in conjunction with financial incentives, however, has a statistically and economically significant and positive impact on conservation behavior and may therefore offer a relatively cheap way to improve the efficiency of conservation-related legislative efforts.

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Agent Heterogeneity in Adoption of Anaerobic Digestion Technology: Integrating Economic, Diffusion, and Behavioral Innovation Theories

Cited by 40 publications

References 34 publications

Factors influencing environmental stewardship in U.S. agriculture: Conservation program participants vs. non-participants

Factors influencing environmental stewardship in U.S. agriculture: Conservation program participants vs. non-participants

Shifts in farmer uncertainty over time about sustainable farming practices and modern farming's reliance on commercial fertilizers, insecticides, and herbicides

Farm Bill 2014: An Experimental Investigation of Conservation Compliance

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