Scaling up pro-environmental agricultural practice using agglomeration payments: Proof of concept from an agent-based model
Authored by Andrew Reid Bell, Gregory Parkhurst, Klaus Droppelmann, Tim G benton
Date Published: 2016
DOI: 10.1016/j.ecolecon.2016.03.002
Sponsors:
Natural Environment Research Council (NERC)
Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC)
Department for International Development (DFID)
Platforms:
Python
Model Documentation:
ODD
Flow charts
Mathematical description
Model Code URLs:
Model code not found
Abstract
Rates of adoption of pro-environmental practices in agriculture in many
parts of the world are low. In some cases, this is attributable to the
private costs borne by farmers to adopt these practices, often well in
advance of any benefits - public or private- that they may bring.
Monetary incentives, such as through payments-for-ecosystem services
(PES) programs, may be of assistance, and in this study we examine the
potential for a recent innovation (the agglomeration payment) to improve
adoption of pro-environmental practice in a rural agricultural context.
Agglomeration payments include bonus payments for adoption by
neighboring farms, which may help to encourage both compliance with the
program they promote as well as the overall diffusion of the program
across rural contexts. We develop an abstract agent-based model (ABM) of
an agglomeration payment program to encourage adoption of the
pro-environment practice of conservation agriculture (CA). We find that
agglomeration payments have the potential to improve levels of adoption
of pro-environmental practice per program dollar, and may help to reduce
required spending on project monitoring and enforcement. (C) 2016
Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Tags
Adoption
Land-use
Decision-Making
Ecosystem services
Spatial incentives
Punishment
Challenges
Conservation agriculture
Designing payments
Landscape approach