Grouping Agri-Environmental Practices in Germany Along Behavioural Drivers for Adoption

Julian Rode; Bartosz Bartkowski; Nina Büttner; Birgit Müller

doi:10.52825/gjae.v74i.2543

Authors

Julian Rode Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8210-5038
Bartosz Bartkowski Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5938-1221
Nina Büttner Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research
Birgit Müller Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8780-4420

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.52825/gjae.v74i.2543

Keywords:

Agricultural Policy, Sustainable Agriculture, Farmer Behaviour, Agri-Environmental Practices, Theoretical Domains Framework

Abstract

Widespread adoption of sustainable practices is crucial for a transformation of agriculture towards sustainability. Effective policy interventions to increase their adoption require an understanding of the behavioural drivers of adoption. Based on interviews with twelve experts on German agriculture, this study assesses the importance of a comprehensive set of behavioural factors for the adoption of 18 agri-environmental practices. The rated level of importance of the behavioural factors varies significantly across the practices. While enhancing farmers’ capability in terms of knowledge is confirmed to be a key factor for adoption of most practices, opportunity-related factors such as financial resources, and motivation-related factors such as future-orientation or habits are more specific to certain sub-groups of practices. Cluster analysis reveals three robust groups of practices that share similar behavioural drivers. For instance, a cluster consisting of agroforestry, hedges, and permanent grassland coincided as overall demanding for farmers and difficult to reverse, requiring future-orientation, a favourable legal context without short-term leases, and financial resources. For another cluster – legumes, reduced mowing, reduced tillage, rotational fallow and reduced soil pressure – adoption of the practices may actually save workforce and time for farmers, but - in addition to knowledge needs - depend on proper integration within farmers’ habits and routines. The findings of our study, both at the level of single practices and on cluster-level, can inform the design of targeted policy interventions such as trainings and financial support schemes.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

References

Atkins, L., Francis, J., … , Michie, S. (2017): A guide to using the Theoretical Domains Framework of behaviour change to investigate implementation problems. Implementation Science 12 (77). https://doi.org/10.1186/s13012-017-0605-9.

Axon, S., Morrissey, J., Aiesha, R., Hillman, J., Revez, A., Lennon, B., Salel, M., Dunphy, N., Boo, E. (2018): The human factor: Classification of European community-based behaviour change initiatives. Journal of Cleaner Production 182: 567-586. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2018.01.232.

Baaken, M.C. (2022): Sustainability of agricultural practices in Germany: a literature review along multiple environmental domains. Regional Environmental Change 22 (39). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10113-022-01892-5

Baaken, M.C., Bartkowski, B., Rode, J. (2023): Exploring farmers’ support needs for the adoption of agri-environmental practices: an application of the theoretical domains frame-work. Environmental Research Commununications 5 (111004). https://doi.org/10.1088/2515-7620/ad03b0.

Baaken, M.C., Vollan, B. (2024): Identifying behavior change interventions with deep lever-age: a conceptual and qualitative case study with farmers from Germany. Sustainability Science 19: 2171-2186. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11625-024-01540-3.

Bartkowski, B., Bartke, S. (2018): Leverage Points for Governing Agricultural Soils: A Review of Empirical Studies of European Farmers’ Decision-Making. Sustainability 10 (3179). https://doi.org/10.3390/su10093179.

Bartkowski, B., Beckmann, M., ... , Wittstock, F. (2023): Adoption and potential of agri‐environmental schemes in Europe: Cross‐regional evidence from interviews with farmers. People and Nature 5 (Heft?): 1610-1621. https://doi.org/10.1002/pan3.10526.

Bartkowski, B., Schüßler, C., Müller, B. (2022): Typologies of European farmers: approaches, methods and research gaps. Regional Environmental Change 22 (43). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10113-022-01899-y.

Braito, M., Leonhardt, H., Penker, M., Schauppenlehner-Kloyber, E., Thaler, G., Flint, C.G. (2020): The plurality of farmers’ views on soil management calls for a policy mix. Land Use Policy 99 (104876). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2020.104876.

Brown, C., Kovács, E., Herzon, I., Villamayor-Tomas, S., Albizua, A., Galanaki, A., Gram-matikopoulou, I., McCracken, D., Olsson, J.A., Zinngrebe, Y. (2021): Simplistic under-standings of farmer motivations could undermine the environmental potential of the com-mon agricultural policy. Land Use Policy 101: 105136. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2020.105136.

Cane, J., O’Connor, D., Michie, S. (2012): Validation of the theoretical domains framework for use in behaviour change and implementation research. Implementation Science 7 (37). https://doi.org/10.1186/1748-5908-7-37.

Dalmaijer, E.S., Nord, C.L., Astle, D.E. (2022): Statistical power for cluster analysis. BMC Bioinformatics 23 (205). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12859-022-04675-1.

Delaroche, M. (2020): Adoption of conservation practices: what have we learned from two decades of social-psychological approaches? Current Opinion in Environmental Sustaina-bility 45: 25-35. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cosust.2020.08.004.

DeFAF (Deutscher Fachverband für Agroforstwirtschaft) (2022): Was ist Agroforstwirtschaft? https://agroforst-info.de/agroforstwirtschaft/.

Dessart, F.J., Barreiro-Hurlé, J., Van Bavel, R. (2019): Behavioural factors affecting the adoption of sustainable farming practices: a policy-oriented review. European Review of Agricultural Economics 46: 417-471. https://doi.org/10.1093/erae/jbz019.

Elsawah, S., Filatova, T., ... , Lade, S.J. (2020): Eight grand challenges in socio-environmental systems modeling. SESMO 2: 16226. https://doi.org/10.18174/sesmo.2020a16226.

Gainforth, H.L., Sheals, K., Atkins, L., Jackson, R., Michie, S. (2016): Developing interven-tions to change recycling behaviors: A case study of applying behavioral science. Applied Environmental Education & Communication 15: 325-339. https://doi.org/10.1080/1533015X.2016.1241166.

Gütschow, M., Bartkowski, B., Felipe-Lucia, M.R. (2021): Farmers’ action space to adopt sustainable practices: a study of arable farming in Saxony. Regional Environmental Change 21: 103. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10113-021-01848-1.

Hedin, B., Katzeff, C., Eriksson, E., Pargman, D. (2019): A Systematic Review of Digital Be-haviour Change Interventions for More Sustainable Food Consumption. Sustainability 11: 2638. https://doi.org/10.3390/su11092638.

Huber, R., Bartkowski, B., Brown, C., El Benni, N., Feil, J.-H., Grohmann, P., Joormann, I., Leonhardt, H., Mitter, H., Müller, B. (2024): Farm typologies for understanding farm sys-tems and improving agricultural policy. Agricultural Systems 213: 103800. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agsy.2023.103800.

Kassambara, A. (2023): Ggpubr: ‘Ggplot2’ Based Publication Ready Plots. https://https://rpkgs.datanovia.com/ggpubr/.

Kassambara, A., Mundt, F. (2020): factoextra: Extract and Visualize the Results of Multivari-ate Data Analyses. R Package Version 1.0.7. https://CRAN.R-project.org/package=factoextra.

Lastra-Bravo, X.B., Hubbard, C., Garrod, G., Tolón-Becerra, A. (2015): What drives farmers’ participation in EU agri-environmental schemes?: Results from a qualitative meta-analysis. Environmental Science & Policy 54: 1-9. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envsci.2015.06.002.

Leonhardt, H., Braito, M., Uehleke, R. (2022): Combining the best of two methodological worlds? Integrating Q methodology-based farmer archetypes in a quantitative model of agri-environmental scheme uptake. Agriculture and Human Values 39 (1): 217-232. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10460-021-10242-w.

Maechler, M., Rousseeuw, P., Struyf, A., Hubert, M., Hornik, K. (2021): cluster: Cluster Anal-ysis Basics and Extensions (R package version 2.1.1). https://search.gesis.org/publication/zis-MaechlerRousseeuwStruyfHubertHornikK.2021cluster.

Marselle, M.R., Turbe, A., Shwartz, A., Bonn, A., Colléony, A. (2021): Addressing behavior in pollinator conservation policies to combat the implementation gap. Conservation Biology 35: 610-622. https://doi.org/10.1111/cobi.13581.

Mawois, M., Vidal, A., Revoyron, E., Casagrande, M., Jeuffroy, M.-H., Le Bail, M. (2019): Transition to legume-based farming systems requires stable outlets, learning, and peer-networking. Agronomy for Sustainable Development 39 (14). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13593-019-0559-1.

Michie, S., Atkins, L., West, R. (2014): The Behaviour Change Wheel: A Guide to Designing Interventions. Silverback Publishing, London. www.behaviourchangewheel.com.

Michie, S., Van Stralen, M.M., West, R. (2011): The behaviour change wheel: A new method for characterising and designing behaviour change interventions. Implementation Science 6: 42. https://doi.org/10.1186/1748-5908-6-42.

Mills, J., Ingram, J., Dibari, C., Merante, P., Karaczun, Z., Molnar, A., Sánchez, B., Iglesias, A., Ghaley, B.B. (2020): Barriers to and opportunities for the uptake of soil carbon man-agement practices in European sustainable agricultural production. Agroecology and Sus-tainable Food Systems 44: 1185-1211. https://doi.org/10.1080/21683565.2019.1680476.

Nair, P.K.R. (1993): An introduction to agroforestry. Kluwer Academic Publishing, Dordrecht.

Oberlack, C., Pedde, S., Piemontese, L., Václavík, T., Sietz, D. (2023): Archetypes in support of tailoring land-use policies. Environmental Research Letters 18: 060202. https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/acd802.

Pannell, D.J., Claassen, R. (2020): The Roles of Adoption and Behavior Change in Agricul-tural Policy. Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy 42: 31-41. https://doi.org/10.1002/aepp.13009.

Pe’er, G., Bonn, A., … , Lakner, S. (2020): Action needed for the EU Common Agricultural Policy to address sustainability challenges. People and Nature 2 (Heft?): 305-316. https://doi.org/10.1002/pan3.10080.

Pe’er, G., Zinngrebe, Y., … , Lakner, S. (2019): A greener path for the EU Common Agricul-tural Policy. Science 365: 449-451. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aax3146.

R Core Team (2023): R: A Language and Environment for Statistical Computing. R Founda-tion for Statistical Computing, Vienna. https://www.R-project.org/.

Reiter, K., Röder, N., Peitz, C. (2024): Die Umsetzung der Grünen Architektur der Gemein-samen Agrarpolitik in Deutschland: Bessere Förderbedingungen für die Biodiversität in der Agrarlandschaft? Naturschutz und Landschaftsplanung (NuL) 55: 26-37. https://doi.org/10.1399/NuL.2024.01.02.

Rode, J., Moreno Soares, T., Colléony, A., Turbe, A., Chadwick, P., Marselle, M. (2024): Na-tional biodiversity strategies under-utilize the potential for individual behaviour change. En-vironmental Science & Policy 16: 103916. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envsci.2024.103916.

Rommel, J., Schulze, C., Matzdorf, B., Sagebiel, J., Wechner, V. (2023): Learning about German farmers’ willingness to cooperate from public goods games and expert predic-tions. Q Open 3, qoac023. https://doi.org/10.1093/qopen/qoac023.

Schlüter, M., Baeza, A., … , Wijermans, N. (2017): A framework for mapping and comparing behavioural theories in models of social-ecological systems. Ecological Economics 131: 21-35. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2016.08.008.

Schulze, C., Zagórska, K., Häfner, K., Markiewicz, O., Czajkowski, M., Matzdorf, B. (2024): Using farmers’ ex ante preferences to design agri‐environmental contracts: A systematic review. J Agricultural Economics 75: 44-83. https://doi.org/10.1111/1477-9552.12570.

Spillane, D., Courtenay, M., Chater, A., Family, H., Whitaker, A., Acton, J.H. (2021): Factors influencing the prescribing behaviour of independent prescriber optometrists: a qualitative study using the Theoretical Domains Framework. Ophthalmic Physiologic Optic 41: 301-315. https://doi.org/10.1111/opo.12782 .

Stupak, N., Sanders, J., Heinrich, B. (2019): The Role of Farmers’ Understanding of Nature in Shaping their Uptake of Nature Protection Measures. Ecological Economics 157: 301-311. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2018.11.022.

Swart, R., Levers, C., Davis, J.T.M., Verburg, P.H. (2023): Meta-analyses reveal the im-portance of socio-psychological factors for farmers’ adoption of sustainable agricultural practices. One Earth 6: 1771-1783. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.oneear.2023.10.028.

Tensi, A.F., Ang, F., Van Der Fels-Klerx, H.J. (2022): Behavioural drivers and barriers for adopting microbial applications in arable farms: Evidence from the Netherlands and Ger-many. Technological Forecasting and Social Change 182: 121825. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.techfore.2022.121825.

Van Valkengoed, A.M., Abrahamse, W., Steg, L. (2022): To select effective interventions for pro-environmental behaviour change, we need to consider determinants of behaviour. Na-ture Human Behaviour 6: 1482-1492. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-022-01473-w.

Wickham, H. (2016): ggplot2, Use R! Springer International Publishing, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-24277-4.

Wittstock, F., Paulus, A., Beckmann, M., Hagemann, N., Baaken, M.C. (2022): Understand-ing farmers’ decision-making on agri-environmental schemes: A case study from Saxony, Germany. Land Use Policy 122: 106371. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2022.106371.

Zhang, L., Ruiz-Menjivar, J., Luo, B., Liang, Z., Swisher, M.E. (2020): Predicting climate change mitigation and adaptation behaviors in agricultural production: A comparison of the theory of planned behavior and the Value-Belief-Norm Theory. Journal of Environmental Psychology 68: 101408. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvp.2020.101408.

Zinngrebe, Y., Pe’er, G., Schueler, S., Schmitt, J., Schmidt, J., Lakner, S. (2017): The EU’s ecological focus areas – How experts explain farmers’ choices in Germany. Land Use Pol-icy 65: 93-108. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2017.03.027.

Grouping Agri-Environmental Practices in Germany Along Behavioural Drivers for Adoption

Authors

DOI:

Keywords:

Abstract

Downloads

References

Downloads

Published

How to Cite

Issue

Section

License

Funding data