Speaker
Description
Result-based payment schemes (RBPS) are an alternative to business-as-usual agri-environmental climate action-based schemes. Key advantages are flexibility and autonomy for farmers, clearer payment-to-biodiversity link (European Commission, 2023). Germany was the first EU member state to apply RBPs (Oppermann & Gujer, 2003) counting currently with RBPs AECMs in several federal states (second pillar) and newly as echo scheme 5 (first pillar) (IEEP, 2022; BMEL, 2025). Besides RBPs, collective management of biodiversity is gaining spotlight in CAP alternatives for AECMs innovation, often mentioned together with RBPs (e.g. in European Parliament and the Council of the European Union, 2021). Germany has 22 past and ongoing RBPS (Hagemann et al., 2025), where only the program “Kooperativer Wiesenvogelschutz(….)” in Bremen applies collective management aspects in its design (BUND 2024). Despite advances, key challenges of RBP include increased risk, regional suitability of indicators, monitoring costs (Hagemann et al. 2025).
The study examines barriers and leverage points for upscaling RBPs in Germany’s Second Pillar AECMs by exploring collective management options blending. More specifically, by understanding farmer’s evaluations on collective options as leverages for RBPs. By applying a factorial survey experiment (FSE) design, the study examines how varying attributes and levels influence farmers' evaluations (scheme feasibility and fairness).
In FSEs, respondents are presented with hypothetical scenarios that depict real-world situations and are asked to evaluate these scenarios in a rating scale (Auspurg & Hinz 2015a). The method first appeared in the 1950s in the social sciences, increasingly applied in different areas, like agricultural policies (Glenk et al. 2024) and resource economics (Parkins, et al.2022). Unlike choice experiments, FSE enables a nuanced evaluation of decision-making (Auspurg & Hinz, 2015b). In Germany’s complex agri-environmental policies, farmers use various criteria to assess incentives, and factorial surveys help analyze the nuances of their trade-offs.
The experimental design follows four stages: (1) a literature review on RBPs in Europe and Germany, including agri-environmental collective options; (2) focus groups with scientists (March 2025) and RBP Network stakeholders (April 2025) to establish hypotheses; (3) identifying links between RBP upscaling challenges and collective management solutions; and (4) testing vignettes in a pre-test (N=30) at the end of April 2025.
The final study targets 250 respondents via online survey (Survey Engine) distributed via email (starting June). It includes text-based scenarios and socio-demographics, behavior, and farm characteristics pre-FSE questionnaire. The sample comprises full-time and part-time German farmers managing arable land or grassland, excluding livestock-only and specialized/permanent crop farms.
| Keywords | Factorial Survey Experiment, Result-based, collective |
|---|---|
| Status of your work | Experimental Design |
| Early Career Researcher Award | No, the paper is not eligible |
