Factors influencing farmers' preferences about agricultural equipment supply. A literature overview

The decreasing number of farmers and the associated increase in farm and field average size risks constraining the opportunities for innovative farming system design. Agricultural equipment adoption and management can play a critical role to ensure the whole farm's profitability by increasing farming practices' efficiency. Hence, it is crucial to understand the factors influencing the farmers' decision-making and preferences about the equipment supply. The aim of this study is to identify the major drivers in this process based on an overview of the available scientific literature and reports, addressing the interactions between farming practices and equipment supply from the farmers' perspective. Our goal is to define a generic analytical framework to explore the expectations and willingness of farmers in the adoption of equipment innovation. We foster studies at levels ranging from regions to countries. First, we performed a bibliometric analysis using keywords that describe strategic and technical farm-level decision-making. On this basis, we then focus on mixed crop-livestock farming system as an example integrating a wide range of farm equipment types. In particular, we point out on-farm and off-farm (i.e., territorial) driving factors having an impact on decision-making processes. In addition, we stressed the role of various stakeholders potentially involved: machinery cooperatives and syndicates, farm machinery groups, supply-chain actors and so forth. The expected result of the literature overview is a comprehensive understanding of the information sources that feed the farmers' decision-making in the adoption of various types of agricultural equipment. In perspective, we foster to ease the sharing of technical advances and resources between farmers and producers about machinery design and supply, so as to emphasise the positive impact of new agricultural practices on the development of innovative equipment