Scaling up the Agro-Ecological Transition: Experimental and Behavioural Approaches

Dear colleagues, 

Substantial efforts are needed to reduce the environmental footprint of agricultural activities and, more broadly, of food systems. There are multiple economic, institutional and psychological lock-ins which prevent farmers from switching to more sustainable farming practices and fully engaging in the agro-ecological transition. Agricultural policies, such as the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) in the European Union or the Farm Bill in the US, seek to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of their agri-environmental schemes and are searching for innovative evidence-based solutions to encourage farmers to adopt more environmentally friendly production systems and techniques. A large body of literature already exists on innovative agri-environmental policy design, notably mobilizing experimental and behavioural approaches. They show that the one-size-fits-all policy model is insufficiently effective and that policy measures adapted to local specificities perform better. However, this fails to answer the question of what could ensure the large and rapid diffusion of sustainable practices and aid in scaling up and accelerating the environmental transition process in the agricultural sector: are collective or results-based incentives needed? Can social norms be an effective driver of behavioural changes? How could the choice architecture that the farmers are facing be adapted to account for status-quo bias and other behavioural mechanisms impeding the transition towards greater sustainability? How should the legal environmental regime evolve in terms of mandatory and voluntary conservation efforts?

A solution could be found in a more transformative transition of the entire food system, involving consumers and other actors in the food chains. Will changes in food consumption preferences be essential in the process? Are food companies ready to promote different production models? These are examples of levers which could induce a large-scale transition to more sustainable farming systems.

The scope of the Special Issue the scale-up of the agri-environmental transition. It targets research which could contribute to filling the knowledge gap on economic or behavioural incentives able to unlock the sustainability transition process at a large scale in the agricultural sector. Priority will be given to articles providing evidence-based results (in particular, using experimental and quasi-experimental approaches) and discussing the feasibility of the solutions proposed.

Dr. Sophie Thoyer
Dr. Fabian Thomas
Guest Editors

• agri-environmental policy
• economic tools
• behaviour
• experiments
• farmers
• food systems
• sustainable farm practices
• scalability