Adopting and Combining Strategies of Sustainable Intensification An Analysis of Interdependencies in Farmers Decision Making

Sustainable intensification (SI) of agriculture covers a broad range of practices that in an optimal combination should contribute to environmental protection as well as to the economic viability of farming. Farmers are likely to make a simultaneous adoption decision on a utility maximising set of SI practices. The aim of this study is to (i) detect which SI practices are adopted, (ii) analyse the influence of farmers characteristics as well as farm attributes on the adoption decision and (iii) evaluate whether the selection of different SI practices is interdependent. We draw on farm survey data from 2017. We use a SI conceptual framework that assigns practices to four fields of action (FoA) from farm to landscape level and land use to structural optimisation. Using multivariate probit modelling, we assess the determinants of adopting SI within each FoA, controlling for possible correlation of the adoption of practices across FoA. Results indicate that most farmers apply SI practices in a combined portfolio. Farmers are more likely to apply field-level interventions than SI practices that require regional cooperation. Decisions show dependence on each other with a tendency for complementarities and path dependencies in SI adoption. Acknowledgement : This research was financially supported by the European Commission under grant agreement 652615 and conducted in the context of the ERA-Net FACCE SURPLUS project VITAL, with the national funders NWO (Netherlands), BMBF (Germany), INIA (Spain), ANR (France)