Heterogeneity of farmers' preferences towards agri-environmental schemes across different agricultural subsystems

Abstract

Specialised literature on the uptake of agri-environmental schemes (AES) has paid little attention to how this can be influenced by the different types of agricultural systems. This paper analyses the heterogeneity of farmers' preferences towards these schemes, distinguishing between different subsystems within the same agricultural system. We use the choice experiment method to analyse the case study of three olive grove subsystems in southern Spain, with the subsystems ranging from extensive to intensive. The results reveal inter- and intra-subsystem heterogeneity of farmers' preferences towards AES, both in general and specifically related to scheme attributes. A variety of factors appear to lie behind inter-subsystem heterogeneity, especially those associated with subsystem specificities (principally, the type of joint production). Likewise, numerous factors play a role in intra-subsystem heterogeneity, most of them related to farm/farmer socio-economic and physical characteristics. These findings will help in the design of more efficient AES.

Keywords:

• agri-environmental schemes
• olive groves
• ecological focus areas
• preference heterogeneity
• choice experiment

Acknowledgements

The authors thank Dr Klaus Glenk for his valuable comments on earlier versions of the paper. Authors also acknowledge the support provided by the Spanish Ministry of Economics and Competitiveness (MINECO), the National Institute for Agricultural and Food Research and Technology (INIA) and the Andalusian Institute of Agricultural Research and Training (IFAPA).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Unlike arable crops for which a minimum of 5% of farmland must be devoted to EFA to receive the ‘green payment,’ permanent crops are eligible for green payment without any minimum EFA requisite (see Regulation EC 1307/2013, Art. 43–47). Therefore, this research aims to explore olive growers' behaviour regarding the implementation of EFA in their farmland by means of considering the inclusion of this requisite in AES.

2. This design allowed for an analysis of main and second-order effects. Second-order effects were analysed but found to be non-significant. Therefore, the analysis focuses on main effects only.

3. The experimental design was carried out so as to keep balanced combinations of choice sets within each block, so a great effect from a low number of repetitions of each block is not expected.

4. These estimates are produced by calculating the total WTA using Hanemann's proposal (see Section 2.5) applied to the change from status quo level CCAR to CCAR-50%, and assuming linearity and zero welfare change for those farmers whose status quo is above that level. The same is done for CCAR-25%.

5. Obviously, result-oriented schemes can be implemented using auctions that establish scheme levels in terms of the environmental outcome rather than with respect to prescribed practices, as action-based schemes do.

Additional information

Funding

This research is co-financed by the Spanish Ministry of Economics and Competitiveness (MINECO), the National Institute for Agricultural and Food Research and Technology (INIA), and the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) through projects MERCAGUA [AGL2013-48080-C2-1-R], SUSTANOLEA [P10-AGR-5892] and MERCAOLI [RTA2013-00032-00-00]. The first and the last authors acknowledge the support provided by the Andalusian Institute of Agricultural Research and Training (IFAPA) and the European Social Fund (ESF) within the Operative Program of Andalusia 2007–2013 through postdoctoral programs.