Conference Agenda

This paper examines barriers impeding widespread adoption of sustainable grazing practices. Using the 2007 and 2022 Mexican Censuses of Agriculture, we construct a panel dataset of 2,454 municipalities and develop a municipality-level Environmental Sustainability Index (ESI) based on individual grazing practices. This index serves as the dependent variable in a two-way fixed effects fractional panel regression model, which estimates the impact of structural, financial, informational, and institutional adoption barriers. Our results indicate that municipalities with larger grazing areas tend to engage in unsustainable practices, while land tenure regimes act as structural constraints. Access to financial support mechanisms, such as credit, subsidies, and extension services, significantly improves sustainability, whereas agricultural insurance is negatively associated with the adoption of sustainable practices. The results remain robust across different farm sizes, production systems, and alternative weighting schemes for sustainable practices in the ESI. The findings highlight the need for tailored policy interventions that address key barriers to sustainable livestock production and inform broader efforts to promote environmentally sustainable agricultural practices in developing economies.

Reducing meat and animal product consumption is an essential component of climate change mitigation efforts in high-income countries. In recent years, a large body of literature has emerged that assesses the potential of market-based and behavioral instruments in various food choice contexts. We add to this evidence by investigating the impact of an abrupt change in pricing and positioning for vegan, vegetarian and meat-based main meals in a university canteen that occurred in October 2022. Our main analysis encompasses about 700.000 transactions from January 2022 to December 2023. We estimate that the change resulted in an increase of about 10% in vegan meal choices, despite a high baseline level of vegan choice. Our results also suggest that meat and fish meal choices were largely reduced by gradual changes in pricing and positioning that already occurred before October 2022, and decreased slightly more due to reductions in their availability coinciding with the abrupt change in pricing and positioning.

Crop diversification has gained interest due to its role in climate change adaptation. While previous studies have focused on farm productivity and income variability, this study examines the relationship between crop diversification and farm performance, considering farm size, socio-economic status, and location. Using French FADN data from 2010-2022, we analyse 19,822 observations from 3,246 crop-focused farms. Results show that small farms benefit from crop diversification, while large farms face income challenges from diversification. Additionally, crop diversification increases the efficiency of larger farms. The results highlight the need for flexible policies to balance economic viability with environmental objectives.

The food system is a major contributor to climate change and biodiversity loss, so appropriate policies are needed to mitigate the damage in this sector. Therefore, using data from a broadly representative survey of more than 3,000 individuals in Germany, this paper empirically examines support for various pro-environmental food and agricultural policy measures that are actually discussed in the public and political sphere. The descriptive statistics of our data show relatively strong support for many measures. Consistent with prior studies on general climate policy measures, the descriptive analysis also shows that pull policy measures (e.g. tax decreases on plant-based food) tend to receive higher support than push policy measures (e.g. tax increases on dairy products). Our econometric analysis, using Generalized Poisson regression models and multivariate ordered probit models, reveals that individuals who follow a meat-free diet have significantly higher levels of support for all pro-environmental food and agricultural policies. This result could be partly related to individual self-interest (e.g. for the decrease in taxes on plant-based food). Also, economic preferences, such as risk-taking preferences, patience, altruism, and negative reciprocity, are significantly positively related to support for pro-environmental food and agricultural policies. To test whether information about the damages caused by the current food system in terms of climate change and/or biodiversity loss can stimulate support for pro-environmental policies, we included a randomized experiment in our survey. The experimental analysis shows that the provision of climate damage information has a significant positive effect on general support for pro-environmental food and agriculture policies and on many individual policy measures (e.g. the introduction of a "veggie day" in canteens), while the estimated positive effect of biodiversity damage information is not as robust. In addition, we cannot provide robust evidence for a positive effect of combining information on climate and biodiversity damages. The latter could be explained by the negative effect of information overload. Overall, however, we conclude that information-based policy initiatives that highlight the climate damage of the current food system can increase support for pro-environmental food and agricultural policies, at least in the short-run.