Farmers adoption of integrated crop protection and organic farming: do moral and social incentives matter

Summary

We use survey data to provide some empirical information about considerations regarding moral and social incentives among a sample of French fruit-growers and vegetable producers(N=243). Our results show that, beyond the strong role played by economic incentives, a significant number of respondents give high importance to moral and social incentives. We also examine how these behaviors matter according to different crop protection strategies, that is, conventional farming, integrated crop protection (IP) and organic farming (OF). Using a multinomial logistic regression, we find that (1) social incentives (e.g., showing to others one’s environmental commitment) drive both IP and OF adoption, (2) moral incentives (e.g., do not feel guilty about one’s choices) increase the probability of organic farming adoption only, and (3) farmers who give high importance to economic considerations (e.g., cutting production costs) are less likely to adopt OF