Epsilon Archive for Student Projects

Abstract

To mitigate greenhouse gas emissions and biodiversity loss from cattle production in Sweden, it is particularly crucial to incentivize cattle producers to adopt silvopasture practices. To investigate cattle producers’ willingness to adopt silvopasture practices and the related compensation claims, a contingent valuation survey was conducted among cattle producers in Sweden. The theory of planned behaviour was additionally used to explain how underlying psychological constructs influence farmers’ decisions to adopt silvopasture practices. It is found that the adoption decision is negatively correlated with the female gender and the belief that silvopasture leads to higher management costs, and positively correlated with the farmers’ level of education and attitude. Furthermore, the related compensation claims are negatively correlated with the pastures size and the farmers’ confidence in benefiting from alternative sources of income, while positively correlated with the distance between the farm and the nearest city, the level of education and income. The overall mean compensation claim per year per hectare is estimated at SEK 3107.17. Although the obtained results are only preliminary estimates, they can be used for discussing and illustrating scaling up possibilities of silvopasture practices in Sweden. Accordingly, training programs, governmental expenditure, as well as increased recognition of silvopasture in the Common Agricultural Policy and its direct payments scheme are necessary to increase silvopasture implementation, respectively by enhancing knowledge around silvopasture practices and internalizing the non-market benefits of silvopasture.