Mitigation and adaptation in agriculture: effects of framing on farmers’ policy support and sustainable practices

Abstract Mitigation and adaptation are both urgently needed to effectively address climate change and reduce its effects. This is particularly pertinent in the agricultural sector, a major contributor to emissions and highly vulnerable to climate impacts. Our study investigates how farmers perceive and respond to mitigation and adaptation information. We develop and test animated video interventions in an incentivised survey experiment with Norwegian horticultural farmers (N = 513). We examine how an intervention framed in terms of mitigation (Mitigation treatment) or adaptation (Adaptation treatment) influenced support for sector-wide mitigation policies and actual adoption of a sustainable farming practice (cover crops). The results show that the Adaptation treatment significantly increased support for national agricultural mitigation policy compared to the Control, while the Mitigation treatment had no significant effect, suggesting that adaptation is not seen as a substitute for mitigation. However, neither treatment impacted the adoption of cover crops. These findings highlight the need for careful climate messaging in agriculture.