Farm Survey
The BONUS GO4BALTIC Farm Survey
The BONUS GO4BALTIC Farm Survey samples information from farmers in Sweden, Finland, Poland, Estonia and Denmark, including questions to the farmers on their production, which agri-environmental measures they undertake, how they handle nutrients and utilize fertilizers in their agricultural production and which technologies they use as well as which they have been considering.
In BONUS GO4BALTIC specific focus has been on the incentives for farmers adaptation of agri-environmental schemes. As little quantitative knowledge and data about fertiliser use and handling of manure exist in the countries around the Baltic area a comprehensive farm survey was submitted to representative samples of farmers in Denmark, Sweden, Poland, Estonia and Finland.
Altogether 33,086 farmers were contacted to achieve the 2,439 completed responses, ranging from 302 in Estonia to 600 in Sweden. Data were collected between May 2017 and December 2017.
The survey asked for information from farmers on their decisions and trade-offs between agricultural production and environmental protection, specifically on:
- Farmers’ fertilizer practices and handling of manure (amounts, timing, application methods etc.)
- How farmers’ will adapt to future policy changes in environmental, climate and agricultural policies.
Farmers potential choices of subsidy schemes was addressed in a choice experiment, where farmers’ are asked to choose between agri-environmental contracts, and this experiment was developed in cooperation between the partners in order to provide new knowledge about farmers’ preferences for such contracts in all the 5 countries. Literature analysis was performed to ensure novelty and use of the experiences from the scarce, but increasing, number of experimental studies on agri-environmental contracts in the literature.
The dataset is rich and can be utilized for further analysis. The questionnaire and data are public upon request to the coordinator.
The farm survey sampling procedure is explained in the working paper in this link
The farm survey results are also described in these publications:
- Konrad, MTH, Nielsen, HØ, Pedersen, AB & Elofsson , K 2019, 'Drivers of farmers’ investments in nutrient abatement technologies in five Baltic Sea countries' Ecological Economics, bind 159, nr. May, s. 91-100. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2018.12.022
- Hasler, B, Czajkowskij, M, Elofsson, K, Hansen, LB, Häggmark Svensson, T, Konrad, M, Nielsen, HØ, Niskanen, O, Nömann, T, Pedersen, AB, Peterson, K, Poltimäe, H & Zagörska, K 2019, 'Farmers’ preferences for nutrient and climate related agri-environmental schemes - a cross country comparison' AMBIO.
- Häggmark Svensson, T. 2019: Farmers’ participation in AES, willingness-to-accept and the impact of spatial variables. Paper presented at the EAERE Conference, Manchester, 2019.
Photo by: Britta Munter