PROVISION OF AGROECOSYSTEM SERVICES FROM FARMERS - EXTERNAL AND INTERNAL FACTORS

The purpose of this paper is to present an analysis of the motivating factors for the provision of agroecosystem services by farmers. Farmers are one of the main socio-economic actors on whom the provision or disruption of ecosystem services depends to a large extent. For this reason, a number of studies have focused on the motivating factors for promoting the provision of ecosystem services. In our study, we divided these factors into external and internal. We conducted interviews with 345 farmers in all Bulgarian districts. We observed that internal factors have a greater predominance for all three categories of ecosystem services, especially for the provisioning one. Among these, it appears that own beliefs are a prevailing factor among farmers. On the other hand, among the external factors, legal requirements and public subsidies predominate, while factors such as social pressure have a minor contribution.