Stimulating risk averse farmers to adopt microbial applications

Abstract

Abstract Increasing agricultural production, while decreasing its impact on the environment is a global challenge. Sustainable innovations, such as microbial applications, can play an important role in this light. However, risk averse farmers are often reluctant to adopt such innovations. In this study, we investigate (i) the relationship between risk attitude and farmers’ intention to adopt microbial applications and (ii) the effectiveness of an informational video to stimulate the adoption. In July 2020, 98 Dutch arable farmers have participated in an online survey with an experiment. In the experiment, half of the farmers have watched an informational video on microbial applications, while the other half was a clean control without receiving information. Then, all farmers are assigned a monetarily incentivised standard Multiple Price List (MPL) and a payoff-varying MPL lottery game to assess the relationship between innovation adoption and risk attitudes. We find evidence that the video has a significant effect on farmers’ intention to adopt microbial applications. Further, our results suggest that the intention to use microbial applications can be influenced by farmers’ risk attitude.