Scaling up pro-environmental agricultural practice using agglomeration payments: Proof of concept from an agent-based model

Andrew Bell, Gregory Parkhurst, Klaus Droppelmann and Tim G. Benton

Ecological Economics, 2016, vol. 126, issue C, 32-41

Abstract: Rates of adoption of pro-environmental practices in agriculture in many parts of the world are low. In some cases, this is attributable to the private costs borne by farmers to adopt these practices, often well in advance of any benefits – public or private – that they may bring. Monetary incentives, such as through payments-for-ecosystem services (PES) programs, may be of assistance, and in this study we examine the potential for a recent innovation (the agglomeration payment) to improve adoption of pro-environmental practice in a rural agricultural context. Agglomeration payments include bonus payments for adoption by neighboring farms, which may help to encourage both compliance with the program they promote as well as the overall diffusion of the program across rural contexts. We develop an abstract agent-based model (ABM) of an agglomeration payment program to encourage adoption of the pro-environment practice of conservation agriculture (CA). We find that agglomeration payments have the potential to improve levels of adoption of pro-environmental practice per program dollar, and may help to reduce required spending on project monitoring and enforcement.

Keywords: Agent-based model; Conservation agriculture; Malawi; Adoption; Pro-environmental practice; Agglomeration payment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (32)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921800915302299
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ecolec:v:126:y:2016:i:c:p:32-41

DOI: 10.1016/j.ecolecon.2016.03.002

Access Statistics for this article

Ecological Economics is currently edited by C. J. Cleveland

More articles in Ecological Economics from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().