Pesticide taxation and the adoption of low-input cropping management practices using a hidden Markov model

Esther Devilliers, Obafèmi Philippe Koutchadé and Alain Carpentier

European Review of Agricultural Economics, 2025, vol. 52, issue 4, 818-847

Abstract: Literature indicates that a significant reduction in farmers’ pesticide use requires a change in cropping management practices (CMPs). This article investigates farmers’ decision to adopt low-input CMPs and, particularly, how a standard pesticide reduction policy impacts this decision. We propose a hidden Markov model to uncover farmers’ latent CMP choice, which is considered as an expected return maximizing choice. Our empirical application suggests that, for low-input CMP adopters, non-economic factors outweigh profitability concerns. Whereas for conventional farmers, the CMP choice depends on the economic context and the CMPs profitability level. Hence, pesticide reduction policies could help conventional farmers into less intensive CMPs, provided that they compensate for the revenue gap. This study contributes to the debate on the use of financial incentives to encourage reluctant farmers to adopt sustainable practices.

Keywords: sustainable agricultural practices; hidden Markov model; discrete choice model; pesticide policy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/erae/jbaf025 (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

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:oup:erevae:v:52:y:2025:i:4:p:818-847.

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://academic.oup.com/journals

Access Statistics for this article

European Review of Agricultural Economics is currently edited by Timothy Richards, Salvatore Di Falco, Céline Nauges and Vincenzina Caputo

More articles in European Review of Agricultural Economics from Oxford University Press and the European Agricultural and Applied Economics Publications Foundation Oxford University Press, Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP, UK. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Oxford University Press ().