While conservation practices promote soil health and reduce the negative environmental effects from agricultural production, their adoption rates are generally low. To facilitate farmer adoption, we carried out a survey to identify potential challenges faced by farmers regarding conservation tillage and cover crop adoption in the western margin of the US Corn Belt. We found farmers' top two concerns regarding conservation tillage were delayed planting, caused by slow soil warming in spring, and increased dependence on herbicide and fungicides. Narrow planting window and lack of time/labor were perceived by farmers as the two primary challenges for cover crop adoption. Some sense of place factors, including the commonly included dimensions of attachment, identity and dependence, played a role in farmers' perceived challenges. For example, respondents more economically dependent on farming perceived greater challenges. We found that farmers' challenge perceptions regarding reduced yield and lack of time/labor significantly decreased as years of usage increased, implying that time and experience could dilute some challenges faced by farmers. Our findings indicate that social network use, technical guidance and economic subsidies are likely to address the concerns of farmers and facilitate their adoption of conservation practices.
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Examining the social and biophysical determinants of U.S. Midwestern corn farmers’ adoption of precision agriculture
Precision agricultural technologies (PA) such as global positioning system tools have been commercially available since the early 1990s and they are widely thought to have environmental and economic benefit; however, adoption studies show uneven adoption among farmers in the U.S. and Europe. This study aims to tackle a lingering puzzle regarding why some farmers adopt precision agriculture as an approach to food production and why others do not. The specific objective of this study is to examine the social and biophysical determinants of farmers’ adoption of PA. This paper fills a research gap by including measurements of farmer identity—specifically their own conceptions of their role in the food system—as well as their perceptions of biophysical risks as these relate to the adoption of PA among a large sample of Midwestern U.S. farmers. The study has identified that farmer identity and perceptions of environmental risk do indeed influence PA adoption and that these considerations ought to be incorporated into further studies of PA adoption in other jurisdictions. The findings also appear to highlight the social force of policy and industry efforts to frame PA as not only good for productivity and efficiency but also as an ecologically beneficial technology.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1636865
- PAR ID:
- 10118997
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Precision Agriculture
- ISSN:
- 1385-2256
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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Precision Agriculture (PA) manages field heterogeneities and enables informed site-specific management. While PA helps improve farming efficiency and profitability, challenges prior to and following PA adoption can prevent many farmers from widely using it. This paper aims to understand producers’ challenge perceptions using 1119 survey responses from U.S. Midwest farmers. The majority (59%) of respondents have adopted at least one PA technology, while the minority (14%) had not adopted any PA technologies. Cost (equipment and service fee), brand compatibility, and data privacy concerns topped other concerns from the average producer’s point of view. Among all producers, 60% regarded PA equipment and service fee as too high, followed by 50% who viewed brand compatibility and data privacy as their major concerns. Producers at more advanced adoption stage indicated reduced concerns in most categories. Yet, there were similar concerns towards data privacy issue regardless of the adoption status. Furthermore, brand compatibility issue is more of a concern for adopters than for non-adopters. Estimation results from partial proportional odds (PPO) models show that factors that frequently affect producers’ perceived challenges include adoption status, cropland acres, age, education, information sources, farming goals, soil characteristics, and region variables. Findings from this study can aid PA stakeholders in identifying target groups, tailoring future development, research, and outreach efforts, and ultimately promoting efficient PA usage on a broader scale.more » « less
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Abstract The use of intelligent decision support systems (DSS) in precision farming provides an opportunity to improve agricultural recommendations and reduce the impacts of agriculture on the environment. Despite the benefits offered by DDS, many farmers remain skeptical of using these hardware and software tools, and their adoption rates have remained low. A survey of 312 South Dakota farmers examined the barriers and opportunities for their engagement with DSS. Exploratory factor analysis was used to analyze 13 Likert scale survey items that probed farmers’ concerns about DSS. Factor loadings indicated that farmers’ concerns are related to high cost, insufficient knowledge, lack of confidence, and cyber security and privacy. A latent profile analysis (LPA) method was used to classify respondents into profiles or groups based on their dimensions of concerns (cost, knowledge, confidence, and security). Results of the LPA revealed that the sample of farmers could be grouped into four distinct profiles that ranged from low to high confidence in the use of DSS for agronomic decision‐making. Giving attention to farmer comfort/concern profiles allows for a more inclusive and better targeted engagement with farmers and potentially increase the adoption of PA. This knowledge can be vital for technology developers, policymakers, and extension services who are keen to promote PA usage among large‐, medium‐, and small‐scale farmers in the United States.
- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.1007/s11119-019-09681-7
