Characteristics of water quality mitigation measures that lead to greater adoption on farms.

Globally, agriculture is a significant pressure on water quality. While nutrient and sediment loss from agricultural land to water can be scientifically complex, mitigation measures primarily focus on reducing farm nutrient stocks or blocking loss pathways. The appropriateness of mitigation measures is dependent on the identification of specific context-related risks on individual farms. However, advisers also need to consider the likelihood of uptake of measures by farmers. Past research has looked at uptake of particular mitigation measures or a small range of measures. This research expands the literature with an analysis of uptake of a broad and diverse range of measures. Farm characteristics, farmer norms, knowledge required and costs (direct and indirect) associated with individual mitigation measures are investigated to identify factors that could influence greater adoption. Results show that alignment to farmer norms and lower specific costs were associated with high adoption rates. These results have implications for advisers in relation to the selection of measures most likely to be adopted by farmers, and also for policy-makers in relation to the need to incentivise the adoption of high-cost measures.

Investigating bottlenecks hampering the adoption of water quality-enhancing practices for sustainable land management in Ireland.

The scaling of adopted measures on farms is often proposed however, the factors that inform non-adoption of advised measures are typically overlooked. Better understanding of these factors could offer important insights for overcoming these bottlenecks and therefore offer important potential with respect to addressing agri-environmental challenges. We investigated the factors hampering the adoption of sustainable land management practices advised by the main agricultural extension of Ireland. A large qualitative dataset (N = 760) containing farmers' reasons for rejection of advised practices was analysed to identify bottlenecks for adoption. Our research showed that rejection can be explained by different underlying reasons. While subsidies exist for the implementation of sustainable land management practices, incentives to implement are insufficient and costs remain the main barrier for the adoption of the sustainable land management practices. Additionally, land ownership challenges and the aging farming population hamper the adoption of sustainable land management practices. Next to an analysis of the reasons for rejection of all advised practices, we investigated three often advised sustainable land management practices in-depth: implementation of riparian buffer zones, preventing cattle access to watercourses and implementation of a nutrient management plan. The differences in barriers for adoption between these practices showed the need for nuanced communication in order to enhance uptake. In order to reach water quality targets through enhanced uptake of sustainable land management practice, advice should be framed and tailored to farmer objectives.