Speaker
Description
The EU agri-environmental policies are increasingly pushing farmers toward more sustainable production practices. However, changing farmers’ behavior is challenging. Traditional regulatory approaches and subsidies alone often prove insufficient, leading to growing interest in behavioral interventions such as nudging to encourage sustainable agricultural practices. While research has extensively examined the effectiveness of green nudges in agriculture, little is known about farmers’ acceptability and perceived efficacy of these behavioral interventions.
This study addresses this gap by investigating farmers’ acceptance and perceived effectiveness of various green nudges designed to promote sustainable farming practices across Europe, while also examining whether behavioral factors influence these preferences. Using a Best-Worst Scaling (BWS) online experiment, data was collected from over 500 farmers across five countries—Belgium, Italy, Lithuania, Spain, Switzerland, and France —covering different farming sectors, including arable crops, perennial crops, and livestock farming.
Findings from a random parameter logit model reveal that not all nudges are equally accepted or perceived as effective. Reminder-based nudges emerged as the most acceptable and effective, whereas social-norm nudges were consistently among the least favored. Interestingly, a strong correlation was found between acceptance and perceived efficacy. By shedding light on farmers’ attitudes toward green nudges, this research advances the literature on behavioral interventions in agriculture and provides valuable insights for designing more effective agri-environmental policies.
| Keywords | Best-Worst Scaling; Green Nudges; Perceived Effectiveness; Acceptability; Agri-Environmental Policy |
|---|---|
| Status of your work | First results |
| Early Career Researcher Award | Yes, the paper is eligible |
