Transforming the food system: Are farmers ready to take phosphorus stewardship action?

Ensuring global food security while halting ecosystem degradation is arguably one of the most fundamental current challenges. As a key component of fertilisers for which there is no substitute, phosphorus plays a central role in this challenge. Food production systems are critically vulnerable to phosphorus supply disruptions and price spikes, while high phosphorus-inefficiencies drive the greatest global threat to waters through diffuse pollution. Transformation to a more phosphorus sustainable and efficient system inevitably necessitates transition at the farm level, leading to the critical question of whether farmers are ready for such transition. This paper examines the relationship between the farmers’ perceived adaptive capacity and farm-level actions that can enable a positive phosphorus transition. We innovatively apply a second-generation psycho-social mobilisation approach to adaptive capacity (based on personal experience, place attachment, competing concerns, household dynamics, and risk attitudes) and establish its relation to an extended framework of phosphorus stewardship action, using Structural Equation Modelling in a UK-wide survey. Our results confirm that the second-generation approach provides a more nuanced approximation to the understanding of farmers’ adaptive capacity than traditional (first-generation) approaches (five capitals: human, natural, physical, financial, and social), allowing a more dynamic understanding and a more robust assessment of adaptive capacity. Beyond our specific results for the UK (which demonstrate relatively high levels of farmers’ readiness to adapt and promising predisposition to do so, if supported), our research illustrates how this framework can be used to identify priority actions to enhance farmers’ uptake of phosphorus stewardship actions more generally. • We examine farmers adaptive capacity and actions enabling phosphorus transition. • Transformation to a phosphorus sustainable system requires farm level transition. • Second-generation approach provides better understanding of farmer adaptive capacity. • Transfer of capacity from individuals to the system through relationships is essential. • Promoting identity of farmers as environmental stewards is needed.