Factors affecting adoption and continuation of environmentally friendly practices in agriculture and forestry

Autor: Mozzato, Daniele
Jazyk: angličtina
Rok vydání: 2019
Předmět:
Popis: Agriculture and forestry can heavily affect the rural environment, especially when intensive practices are put in place. To increment environmental conservation, the EU financially supports the adoption of Environmentally Friendly Farming/Forestry Practices (EFFPs). To date, policies aimed at supporting EFFPs adoption in agriculture and forestry are however at a different development stage. Given this, and considering the strong interconnection between conservation of the rural environment and farmers' and forest owners' choices, it is crucial that policy design takes into account the range of factors affecting EFFPs adoption by farmers and private forest owners. In the case of farmers, while the adoption factors have been largely explored (and research results have shown that the same factor may have opposite effect on the farmers' choices), research is still scarce on the factors affecting EFFPs implementation for a long time. In the case of private forest owners, the main research gap is on factors affecting their willingness to adopt of EFFPs, while those affecting productive choices are more known. In order to contribute to fill these gaps, this PhD thesis aims to provide the state of the art on factors affecting EFFPs adoption by farmers offering some original insights. In addition, the thesis wants to explore which factors affect private forest owners' willingness to deliver Ecosystem Services (ESs) through EFFPs and to analyse the factors influencing farmers' choices on the continuation of EFFPs for a long time. Finally, the thesis attempts to provide suggestions to policy-makers in developing more effective policy instruments aimed to stimulate EFFPs implementation. To achieve the first research objective, a qualitative meta-analysis has been carried out on the available literature. Results show that specific geographical and temporal trends help to explain most of the differences emerging in relation to the role played by several factors. These differences reflect the characteristics of the geographical context and show temporal trends linked to the different cohorts of EFFPs adopters. To reach the second research objective, private forest owners' willingness to provide ESs by adopting EFFPs has been analysed through three different multinomial logit models. The results highlight that private forest owners' willingness increases when they have a high familiarity with the actions needed to provide the analysed ESs. It also emerges that the already high mandatory baseline imposed upon them by the strict Italian regulation framework does not seem to reduce their willingness to provide additional ESs. This should be considered in defining a clearer structure of the policy instruments and a well-defined baseline over which the additionality of forest-environmental payments has to be established. Referring to the driving forces behind the continuation for a long time of EFFPs by farmers, the results of two diverse duration models show that farmers' choices are affected by a mix of factors evolving over time. Policy design has to take into account these time-dynamics, particularly referring to the effects of farmers' attitudes and motivations and social factors, avoiding the implementation of one-size-fits-all policies. Results place emphasis also on the positive effects played by the accumulation of experience and by the neighbourhood effect. Finally, in fulfilment of the third research objective, the thesis concludes by delivering some suggestions to policy-makers enabling them to design more effective policy instruments. Given the different development stages achieved by policies in agriculture and forestry, no common policy recommendations are drawn for both sectors. For farmers, more mature EFFPs policies are required aiming to stimulate their participation for a long time, while for private forest owners, more structured and well-defined policy instruments to steer EFFPs adoption are needed.
Databáze: OpenAIRE
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