Exploring factors influencing farmers' compensation request for
combating soil erosion in a Mediterranean cropland area
Abstract
Many studies highlight the key role that farmers play in combating soil
erosion, and measure their willingness to adopt sustainable cultivation
practices in front of a monetary compensation. However, only a few of
them focus on factors affecting the magnitude of such compensations,
despite this information is crucial in the design and implementation of
public supported actions aimed at combating agricultural land
desertification. We try to contribute to fill this empirical gap by
reporting results of a research carried out to investigate what factors
influencing farmers’ compensation request for combating soil erosion in
a significant Mediterranean cropland area. Using a discrete choice
experiment, we measured cereal growers’ marginal compensation for
adopting soil conservation practices. Then, using a post-estimation
analysis based on a Seeming Unrelated REgression (SURE) model, we
identified and analysed which farm’s and farmers characteristics
significantly influenced the requested compensations. This post
estimation analysis proved that farmers’ motivations, opinions and
currently undertaken cultivation practices matter.