Agri-environmental schemes (AES) are the main policy instrument currently available in the EU to promote environmentally friendly farming practices. The goal of this paper is to analyze farmers' decision in participating in AES and to determine whether factors that determine adoption depend on the intensity of change in farming practice required by the scheme. An ex-post analysis based in two AES in Spain differing in the intensity of change is conducted. The findings show that farm structural factors play a role when major change is required, yet when dealing with minor changes, individual farmer characteristics play a more determining role. Social capital and farmer attitude are shown to be relevant to both schemes. Based on this, it can be concluded that for increasing uptake in the more demanding AES, the agronomic design needs to be improved by involving the farmer in the designing process, and where the changes are minor a better targeted extension can help achieving this objective.

ESPINOSA GODED Maria;  BARREIRO-HURLÉ Jesús;  DUPRAZ Pierre; 

2010-11-12

Editorial Universidad de Granada

JRC57708

1699-3063,   

http://www.ugr.es/~ambientalia/articulos/art_recientes/6_Espinosa_VVAA_Ambientalia_es.pdf,    https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC57708,