Conference Agenda

Carbon farming represents a major lever for promoting long-term climate mitigation and livelihood benefits in the Global South, yet smallholder uptake remains limited. Behavioral constraints—particularly present bias and risk aversion—are frequently identified as barriers, but their relative importance for land-use decisions is yet unclear. We address this gap using a framed field experiment with 393 smallholder cashew farmers in Ghana. Participants repeatedly allocate trees between cashew and timber on a virtual 25-tree plot under hypothetical carbon payment schemes that vary payment timing (immediate vs. delayed) and payment certainty (guaranteed vs. probabilistic) in a 2×2 factorial design, holding expected payment values constant. Preliminary results show that payment timing affects early land-use choices: farmers facing immediate payments allocate on average 0.4–0.5 more timber trees in early rounds relative to delayed-payment schemes (p $<$ 0.10). These timing effects attenuate over subsequent rounds. Differences by payment certainty are smaller on average, but certain payments increase timber allocation by approximately 0.6–0.8 trees in selected mid rounds (p $<$ 0.05). Across all treatments, timber allocation rises steadily over rounds, consistent with dynamic adjustment and learning. Overall, the results suggest that present-oriented preferences pose a more salient constraint than risk considerations in shaping initial adoption decisions, with implications for the design of carbon payment mechanisms targeting smallholders.

Disclaimer: Because data collection concluded in December 2025, all findings should be interpreted as preliminary. Final robustness checks, heterogeneity analyses, and alternative specifications are ongoing.