Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Drivers of Farmer Adoption of Environmental Technologies
For a new agricultural technology about which farmers are knowledgeable, the
determinants of its adoption fall into two basic categories: barriers and incentives.
As Nowak (1992) observed,
Farmers do not adopt production technologies for two basic reasons: they are
either unable or unwilling. These reasons are not mutually exclusive. Farmers
can be able yet unwilling, willing but unable, and, of course, both unwilling
and unable. (p. 14)
The barriers and incentives paradigm offers a compelling explanation for much of
observed farmer behavior with respect to environmental stewardship. A national study
based on 2001-2003 data found that when farmers see a conservation technology as
advantageous and not costly to adopt, adoption can proceed rapidly (Lambert et al.
2006). For example, adoption of seed-embodied conservation technologies like her-
bicide tolerance and transgenes that encode for the
Bacillus thuringiensis
(Bt) toxin
reached high levels in just a few years. The rapid signups and overenrollment of CRP
fit this model because lease payments were a clear incentive for which there were no
barriers other than knowledge of the program and time available to apply for it.
Technologies embodied in equipment and other capital goods, on the other
hand, tend to face high cost as a barrier to adoption. As a result, attractive but
capital-intensive technologies are adopted more slowly. They tend to be more
quickly adopted by large-scale farmers who can spread fixed costs over more land
and may be able to hire staff with the necessary skills. For example, conservation
tillage has been widely adopted in the United States (Lambert et al. 2006), but its
adoption was much slower than improved seeds because it became cost-effective
to adopt only when the time came to replace equipment (Krause and Black 1995).
Uncertainty can be another barrier to farm technology adoption. Farmers may be
reluctant to invest when significant uncertainty (including the uncertain costs of learn-
ing by trial and error) accompanies an investment in a new technology. For example,
free-stall dairy barns offer improved manure handling as well as operational efficien-
cies, but they were adopted slowly on account of uncertainty about future returns
on investment (Purvis et al. 1995). Organic farming technologies have been adopted
slowly largely because of the time lag to certification and a degree of management
complexity that can make future earnings uncertain (Musshoff and Hirschauer 2008).
Demands on management time can also be a barrier to technology adoption,
especially for small and part-time farmers (Lambert et al. 2006). In contrast,
full-time farmers are more likely to invest the management time or hire a special-
ized employee who can do so.
National Trends in Adoption of Cropping Practices Used at KBS LTER
Adoption of the conservation technologies included in the KBS LTER Main
Cropping System Experiment (MCSE) row-crop systems (Robertson and Hamilton
2015, Chapter 1 in this volume) is high in some areas of the United States but low
in others. The Agricultural Resource Management Survey—begun by the USDA
