The Effects of Experience on Landowner Preferences over Bioenergy Feedstocks

Abstract

This study examines how landowners’ prior experience with bioenergy feedstock crops affects their intentions to lease land to produce those crops, and how attitudes and concerns about bioenergy affect intentions differently for landowners with differing levels of experience. I analyze stated preference data from a representative sample of landowners in Northern Michigan and Wisconsin. Landowners were asked whether they would provide cropland or farmable noncropland to produce three different bioenergy feedstocks: corn stover, switchgrass, and poplar. I develop measures of landowner attitudes and concerns through confirmatory factor analysis and use the resulting measures along with a proxy for experience as covariates in probit models with intention to provide land as the dependent variable. The results indicate that experience has a significant effect on landowners’ decisions for switchgrass and poplar, but less of an impact on the decisions for corn stover. Experience also activates pro-bioenergy attitudes while nullifying concerns about rental and process disamenities. However, experience can increase the impact of concerns about environmental disamenities created by poplar. These findings suggest that targeted outreach can significantly increase the supply of land to produce bioenergy feedstocks. Acknowledgment : This research was funded by the Department of Energy Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center (DOE BER Office of Science DE-FC02- 07ER64494), DOE OBP Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (DE-AC05-76RL01830), the W.K. Kellogg Biological Station, MSU AgBioResearch, and the USDA National Institue of Food and Agriculture. For access to the survey data and methodological guidance, I thank Scott Swinton. For feedback on earlier drafts of this paper, I thank Soren Anderson and Frank Lupi.