Will farmers go electric? How Dutch environmental regulation affects tractor purchase motivations and preferences

Abstract

Farm machinery management can contribute to European agricultural, energy and environmental policy objectives of climate change mitigation and fossil fuel independence by investing in tractor electrification. However, many farmers in the Netherlands (and beyond) have expressed concerns about the future profitability and ability to produce at reasonable costs. The Netherlands is also in a so-called ‘nitrogen crisis’, which further causes policy uncertainty about the introduction of more environmental regulations for nitrogen abatement. We conducted a best-worst scaling survey experiment to elicit preferences for electric tractor attributes and measured attitudes towards environmental regulation using motivational posture theory. The ranking of and correlations across estimated preferences and the purchase intention show that the 156 dairy and arable farmers surveyed evaluated an investment in an electric tractor as not feasible. Another conclusion is that the breakthrough of electric tractors is affected by negative anticipated emotions and feelings concerning the current environmental policy and regulatory context.