The Roles of Adoption and Behavior Change in Agricultural Policy

Abstract

Much of agricultural and agri-environmental policy is concerned with influencing the behavior of farmers in adopting new practices. An ability to understand and predict adoption of practices is useful for agricultural policy in several ways, including assessing additionality, selecting policy mechanisms, targeting policy to practices, farmer types or regions, and assessing likely policy success. Clear thinking about adoption is sometimes clouded by ambiguous and inconsistent language. We suggest a number of terms that are more specific than “adoption.” Research needs include collection of long-term data sets on adoption of a variety of practices, understanding what determines continuous, sustained adoption of conservation practices and a better understanding of why adoption varies between farms.