Farmer willingness to adopt mitigation measures for water quality improvements

Abstract Diffuse pollution from agriculture continues to pose a significant threat to waterbodies. This study investigates the role of diverse farming objectives on a farmers’ openness to adopt a suite of mitigative measures that could have a positive effect on water quality. Based on a farmer survey, factor analysis was used to reduce a long list of potential farming objectives to three: long-term economic objectives (LTE), short-term economic objectives (STE) and environmental objectives (ENV). The results of a multivariate ordered probit model indicate that farming objectives are a highly significant predictor of openness to adopt. Our findings suggest that farmers with LTE and ENV objectives are more open to adopting many of the same mitigation measures while farmers with STE objectives are less open.