Adoption of environmental friendly practices in agriculture: Impact of environmental benefit incentive program in Costa Rica

Communication en libre accès, document disponible en ligne : http://isee2014.yourhost.is/images/abstracts.pdfInternational audienceAside from well-known payment for environmental services program (PSE) for forest conservation, Costa Rica engaged since 2007 in conditional rewards program (RBA for its acronym in spanish) to incentive adoption of agriculture practices that provide environmental externalities (RBA) Based on direct interviews to farmers and cooperatives, we assess 1) the factors that contribute to adoption of technology at cooperative or individual levels, 2) the complementarity between RBA and other incentives such as PES and eco-label. We finally discuss the effect of this conditional payment program regarding the generation of externalities, point out some design failure that explains limits of the results, and finally propose some options according to the different purpose of the program. (Résumé d'auteur