Does priming farmers with consumers-to-producer pro-environmental norms increase their preferences for stronger environmental standards of production?

Abstract

Social norms can impact adoption of environmental practices on farms. To date, the literature focuses mostly on peer-to-peer (farmer-to-farmer) nudging. However, there is also a strong narrative in public debate regarding the pressure farmers feel from urban consumers to increase their environmental performance on farm. Additionally, industry standards and government regulations are important tools for reducing agriculture’s environmental impact as a whole. Thus, there is value in better understanding farmers’ views on how these standards and regulations should change over time. As part of the 2021 Survey of Rural Decision Makers we implement a randomised survey instrument for commercial farmers in New Zealand. We baseline all farmers by asking them their view on their current environmental performance on farm, and how strong they perceive current industry environmental standards and government environmental regulations to be. We then randomly assign the farmers to either receive no nudge, a nudge priming them on the pro-environmental views of domestic consumers or a similar nudge regarding international consumers. Proceeding the nudge, we ask the farmer’s opinions on their farm, industry standards and government regulations again, but where they believe they should be 10 years in the future. Finally, we ask a series of questions on factors that important in farmer adoption of environmental practices, including regarding social norms, to test how they moderate farmers’ responses. We hypothesise that consumer-to-producer norms will be effective at shifting farmers views towards wanting higher environmental performance, standards and regulations. We will present our preliminary findings. They will help inform the extent to which farmers are responsive to public pressure, from both domestic and international consumers.