Conference Agenda
Overview and details of the sessions of this conference. Please select a date or location to show only sessions at that day or location. Please select a single session for detailed view (with abstracts and downloads if available).
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Daily Overview |
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Egg-Timer: Water and Agriculture Location: D-106 Session Chair: Luoye Chen, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (Guangzhou) | |
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Does voluntary certification change farmers’ water management practices? Evidence from Minnesota’s Water Quality Certification Program 1: The Ohio State University, United States of America; 2: University of Minnesota Voluntary incentive-based policies have been gaining traction as a way to protect land and water. However, the evidence of their effectiveness to date remains sparse, especially when it comes to water pollution. Water pollution has been an increasing concern globally, with agricultural runoff being a primary culprit. Because command-and-control legislation has not always been effective, voluntary incentive-based water certification schemes have been propounded as a way to improve agricultural practices on farms. Even though some of these have been existence for over 10 years, rigorous evidence of their effectiveness is still largely lacking. We address this gap by analyzing the impact of Minesota's Water Quality Certification Program on small-scale farmer practices. Drawing on a survey of over 600 farmers, we find that the program increased the adoption of water-protecting farming practices, specifically related to changes in land use (e.g., cover crops and conservation cover). However, the magnitude of the impact is small. We do not find a robust significant effect on the adoption of nutrient management practices. Our work has important implications for the design of the program, implementation, and the future evaluations of the program. | |