Urban population looking for rural landscapes: Different appreciation patterns identified in Southern Europe

In the context of the peripheral European rural landscapes, the role of the urban population, generally referred to as the ‘outsiders’, has shown to be influential in the dynamics of rural space. This influence occurs namely through the demand for non-productive functions leading to the emergence of new modes of occupancy. In addition, the emerging policy framework concerning policies and planning in rural landscapes call for an improved understanding of the diversified social demands for these landscapes. We argue that a more profound knowledge on the urban demand for rural landscape is needed to better integrate the urban interests into rural policy and planning. The present paper aims to gain greater insight on this demand by identifying landscape preferences of urban users, framed by the multifunctional transition theory, and using a photo-based survey with contrasting land covers derived from CORINE Land Cover classes. Furthermore, the use of land cover classes as the main landscape component, and thereby relating preferences to specific land covers, offers a sound basis for a territorial approach, able to integrate landscape into rural policy and land use planning practice. A case-study in Southern Portugal was developed at the regional scale and results showed different appreciation patterns for rural landscapes varying from humanised and more naturalised landscapes according to the different functions sought by urban users. Another prominent result is that urban demand for rural landscapes, even if driven by consumption, is strongly influenced by both protection and production values. A deeper knowledge on the interests of urban population can be a step forward for rural communities, land managers, and sectoral policy decision-makers to better define investment strategies in rural-urban partnerships facing the growing urban demand over rural space.     

The influence of risk preferences,knowledge, land consolidation,and landscape diversification on pesticide use

Researchers have spent substantial effort to identify factors influencing pesticide use intensity. However, few studies have compared the relative importance of these factors. This study examines four categories of factors that potentially influence farmers’ pesticide use decisions by evaluating incentivized experiment data, farm survey data, and remote sensing data in China. Our results suggest that land diversification has the largest effect on farmers’ pesticide use. Compared with the most rice-intensive landscape type, less rice-intensive systems cause farmers to spray less on middle rice. Heavy pesticide use intensity is associated with land fragmentation as small-scale farms still dominate crop production. Farmers’ integrated pest management knowledge has significant effects on pesticide use. We also find that loss and ambiguity preferences, rather than risk preferences, are more likely to affect pesticide use intensity.     

Linking Consumers’ Food Choice Motives to their Preferences for Insect‐based Food Products: An Application of Integrated Choice and Latent Variable Model in an African Context

Consumers’ attitudes, perceptions, personalities and motives play important roles in shaping their food choices. These factors are not fully observed by analysts, so they should be treated as latent variables. A number of economic studies treat such variables as direct measures of consumers’ food choice behaviour, even though this might introduce measurement error and endogeneity bias. We investigate the latent link between consumers’ preferences and food choice motives (FCMs) in an African context. We use an integrated choice and latent variable (ICLV) model specification for data analysis to recognise the latent nature of the FCMs and address the measurement and bias problems. The data originate from an incentivised discrete choice experiment conducted in Kenya to elicit consumers’ preferences for insect‐based foods. Our findings show that consumers’ preferences and choices are influenced by their latent motivational orientation. The results illustrate the benefit of the ICLV approach in accounting for consumers’ latent preference constructs in food choice and valuation research.     

Agricultural Subsidies and Rural Development

How consistent is a single farm payment system with rural development goals? A new economic geography model is used to compare coupled subsidies to ‘single farm payments’ effects on the location of farming, agro‐industry and non‐farm activity between rural and urban areas. This abstract model features a majority of employment in service sectors, farming vertically linked to manufacturing, and strong preferences for geo‐varieties. It appears that both coupled subsidies and single farm payments can decrease spatial agglomeration. But only the single farm payment policy raises welfare in both rural and urban regions of this stylised economy.     

Models of Site‐choice for Walks in Rural Ireland: Exploring Cost Heterogeneity

Farmland can confer significant public good benefits to society aside from its role in agricultural production. In this article, we investigate preferences of rural residents for the use of farmland as a recreational resource. In particular, we use a choice experiment to determine preferences for the development of farmland walking trails. Our modelling approach uses a series of mixed logit models to assess the impact of alternative distributional assumptions for the cost coefficient on the welfare estimates associated with the provision of the trails. Our results reveal that using a mixture of discrete and continuous distributions to represent cost heterogeneity leads to a better model fit and lower welfare estimates. Our results further reveal that Irish rural residents show positive preferences for the development of farmland walking trails in the Irish countryside.     

Capitalization of land development rights in rural China: A choice experiment on individuals’ preferences in peri-urban Shanghai

The capitalization of land development rights is acknowledged as the key to improving compensations for rural landholders and ameliorating land-related social conflicts in peri-urban China. Investigations into reasonable as well as feasible compensation standards and the capitalization mechanism are yet to be done. This study uses a survey-based choice experiment to empirically estimate the value of land development rights in peri-urban Shanghai for three forms of rural land conversion – acquisition, consolidation and (informal) sale. The results show that heterogeneity across individuals’ preferences translates into different utilities from land development, which affects individual’s willingness to participate in this process. This effect is found to be the strongest for land sales on the informal market. If, however, land conversion is managed by local governments and rural collectives, the expected utilities of individuals have no significant effect on the amount of land development. The results suggest that capitalizing land development rights under consideration of land attributes and individuals’ preferences would lift compensation standard to a level that strikes a balance among competing land-related interests. In addition, it would promote China’s land development by bypassing the institutional constraints imposed by the current land tenure system.     

Consumers' Willingness to Pay for Locally Produced Ground Beef: A Case Study of the Rural Northern Great Plains

This study examined consumers’ preferences and willingness to pay (WTP) for locally produced ground beef with an emphasis on the impacts of product attributes and the heterogeneity caused by rural consumers’ characteristics. We applied the choice-based conjoint technique to analyze data collected from a typical rural town in the Northern Great Plains. The results indicate that location associated product brand differences and leanness were dominant components affecting consumers’ WTP. The premium of locally produced ground beef for consumers with a close tie to local production is $0.48/lb. Cut difference, grass-fed, and organic were trivial factors in determining consumers’ WTP.     

Valuing a Natura 2000 network site to inform land use options using a discrete choice experiment: An illustration from the Basque Country

One of the main problems that public institutions face in the management of protected areas, such as the European Natura 2000 network, is determining how to design and implement sustainable management plans that account for the wide range of marketed and non-marketed benefits they provide to society. This paper presents an application of a stated preference valuation approach aimed at evaluating the social preferences of the population of the Basque Country, Spain, for the key attributes of a regional Natura 2000 network site. According to our results, individuals’ willingness-to-pay (WTP) is higher for attributes associated with non-use values (native tree species and biodiversity conservation) than for attributes associated with use values (agricultural development and commercial forestry). The paper concludes that management policies related to Natura 2000 network sites should account for both for the importance of non-use values and the heterogeneity of the population's preferences in order to minimize potential land use conflicts.     

Society's attitudes to and preferences for land and landscape

The relationship between society, land and landscape is deeply complex. Attitudes are reflected in behaviour, notably patterns of consumption through recreational activity, as well as in expressed preferences. Society attaches great importance to land. A large proportion of the population engages directly with it, through gardening and involvement in the management of allotments, community gardens and other public spaces. There is increasing evidence of the benefits of such engagement for individuals and communities. Society's attitudes and preferences have traditionally been dominated by expert or professional views, which have evolved over time and now place emphasis on everyday as well as special landscapes, and on urban greenspace and green infrastructure as much as on rural landscapes. The general public also seems to value the countryside as well as parks and green spaces nearer to home. Public attitudes are shaped by a number of different factors. Age, social and economic status, ethnic origin, familiarity, place of upbringing and residence, particularly whether urban or rural, are especially significant. Perhaps most important are environmental value orientations. At present, society seems to be polarised. At one extreme are older, more affluent, better educated, more environmentally aware people, often in social grades AB, who are often the most active users of the countryside and greenspaces. At the other extreme are younger age groups, ethnic minorities, and those who are in the DE social grades, who are often much less engaged. These groups have very different values and attitudes. But most people need to access and enjoy different types of landscape at different times and for different purposes, accessing what has been called a ‘portfolio of places’ that is particular to each person. It is by no means clear how the various factors that influence people's attitudes and preferences will play out in the future. Society may continue to become more detached from nature and landscape, and less caring about its future. Or there could be a rekindling of society's need to engage with the land and an increased desire to ensure that all sectors of society can benefit from green spaces and rural landscapes. This is likely to require interventions through education and campaigns to change attitudes and behaviour. Whether such initiatives can be effective in the face of competing drivers of attitudinal and behavioural change and over what timescale, may well determine how society's relationships with land and landscape evolve over the next 50 years.     

Public preferences for biodiversity conservation and climate-change mitigation: A choice experiment using ecosystem services indicators

Potential conflicts exist between biodiversity conservation and climate-change mitigation as trade-offs in multiple-use land management. This study aims to evaluate public preferences for biodiversity conservation and climate-change mitigation policy considering respondents’ uncertainty on their choice. We conducted a choice experiment using land-use scenarios in the rural Kushiro watershed in northern Japan. The results showed that the public strongly wish to avoid the extinction of endangered species in preference to climate-change mitigation in the form of carbon sequestration by increasing the area of managed forest. Knowledge of the site and the respondents’ awareness of the personal benefits associated with supporting and regulating services had a positive effect on their preference for conservation plans. Thus, decision-makers should be careful about how they provide ecological information for informed choices concerning ecosystem services tradeoffs. Suggesting targets with explicit indicators will affect public preferences, as well as the willingness of the public to pay for such measures. Furthermore, the elicited-choice probabilities approach is useful for revealing the distribution of relative preferences for incomplete scenarios, thus verifying the effectiveness of indicators introduced in the experiment.     

Explaining public preferences for high voltage pylon designs: An empirical study of perceived fit in a rural landscape

In many countries, electricity transmission networks are being upgraded and developed arising from policies aiming to decarbonise energy systems. However, new power lines are often controversial, due to their perceived negative impacts on rural landscapes. Despite the fact that visual impacts are an important element of public objections, to date, little research has analysed public preferences for alternative pylon designs, as well as investigating the social and psychological factors that might explain such preferences. This paper sought to address this gap, informed by research on public acceptance of renewable energy technologies, using a survey conducted with a representative sample of UK adults (n = 1519). The findings indicate that the ‘T-pylon’ design, winner of a recent competition, was most strongly preferred and the one most perceived to fit with a rural landscape, by comparison to the conventional ‘A frame’ design and a ‘Totem’ design shortlisted in the competition. Linear regression analyses indicated three factors that explained perceived fit, regardless of the designs: lower levels of educational attainment, positive general attitudes towards transmission lines and higher levels of trust in National Grid were associated with positive perceptions of fit of the pylons in a rural landscape. Finally, findings concerning public support for diverse mitigation measures indicated that the use of alternative designs was less supported than burying new powerlines underground and routing pylons away from homes and schools. The implications of these results for more sustainable grid networks are discussed.     

Local perceptions about rural abandonment drivers in the Colombian coffee region: Insights from the city of Manizales

One of the most challenging processes in the rural world is the one related to rural abandonment. Rural abandonment has drawn attention worldwide, particularly in Europe and Asia without neglecting the importance in other regional contexts such as Latin America. Even though the literature about rural abandonment drivers is vast, these pieces of literature do not identify the drivers perceived by the people who live in rural areas. Therefore, in this paper, we search for the understanding of the perceived drivers of rural abandonment in the Colombian coffee region. The specific objectives were: (1) to identify socioeconomic characteristics of the respondents; (2) to analyze local attitudes toward the countryside and farming, and (3) to identify perceived factors influencing rural abandonment. We surveyed 320 households in 12 villages around the city of Manizales (Colombia), and we conducted 27 key informant interviews, and three focal groups. Our results show that the rural population faces several socio-economic constraints; however, despite these constraints, most people are willing to remain in the countryside (85%). We discussed the variables affecting these preferences. Furthermore, we found several drivers of rural abandonment perceived by the sampled population, where they highlight the lack of State support and rural education. We concluded that our results help to deepen into the understanding of the contemporary rural dynamics related to countryside abandonment.     

Assessing the ability of rural agrarian areas to provide cultural ecosystem services (CES): A multi scale social indicator framework (MSIF)

Assessing the ways in which rural agrarian areas provide Cultural Ecosystem Services (CES) is proving difficult to achieve. This research has developed an innovative methodological approach named as Multi Scale Indicator Framework (MSIF) for capturing the CES embedded into the rural agrarian areas. This framework reconciles a literature review with a transdisciplinary participatory workshop. Both of these sources reveal that societal preferences diverge upon judgemental criteria which in turn relate to different visual concepts that can be drawn from analyzing attributes, elements, features and characteristics of rural areas. We contend that it is now possible to list a group of possible multi scale indicators for stewardship, diversity and aesthetics. These results might also be of use for improving any existing European indicators frameworks by also including CES. This research carries major implications for policy at different levels of governance, as it makes possible to target and monitor policy instruments to the physical rural settings so that cultural dimensions are adequately considered. There is still work to be developed on regional specific values and thresholds for each criteria and its indicator set. In practical terms, by developing the conceptual design within a common framework as described in this paper, a considerable step forward toward the inclusion of the cultural dimension in European wide assessments can be made.     

Changing decisions in a changing landscape: How might forest owners in an urbanizing region respond to emerging bioenergy markets?

The global bioenergy market has considerable impacts on local land use patterns, including landscapes in the Southeastern United States where increased demand for bioenergy feedstocks in the form of woody biomass is likely to affect the management and availability of forest resources. Despite extensive research investigating the productivity and impacts of different bioenergy feedstocks, relatively few studies have assessed the preferences of private landowners, who control the majority of forests in the eastern U.S., to harvest biomass for the bioenergy market. To better understand contingent behaviors given emerging biomass markets, we administered a stated preference experiment to private forest owners in the rapidly urbanizing Charlotte Metropolitan region. Respondents indicated their preferences for harvesting woody biomass under a set of hypothetical market-based scenarios with varying forest management plans and levels of economic return. Our analytical framework also incorporated data from a previously-administered revealed preference survey and spatially-explicit remote sensing data, enabling us to analyze how individuals’ ownership characteristics, their emotional connection the forests they manage, and the spatial patterns of nearby land uses, influence willingness to grow bioenergy feedstocks. We found conditional support for feedstock production, even among woodland owners with no history of active management. Landowners preferred higher economic returns for each management plan. However low-intensity harvest options were always preferred to more intensive management alternatives regardless of economic return, suggesting that these landowners may be more strongly motivated by aesthetic or quality-of-life concerns than feedstock revenues. Our analysis indicated preferences were dependent upon individual and environmental characteristics, with younger, more rural landowners significantly more interested in growing feedstocks relative to their older and more urban counterparts. While this study focuses on one small sample of urban forest owners, our results do suggest that policy makers and resource managers can better inform stand-level decision-making by understanding how feedstock production preferences vary across populations.     

旅游乡村用地格局演变微尺度分析*——以北京市怀柔区西庄村为例

［目的］乡村振兴战略将乡村旅游作为我国农村扶贫的重要手段，而旅游业的发展对乡村用地格局产生了深远影响。对典型城郊旅游村庄西庄村的用地格局演变展开研究，识别当前旅游用地模式中存在的问题，对合理划定村级“三生空间”和推动乡村旅游转型升级具有重要意义。［方法］文章基于Google Earth高精度遥感图像，运用参与式农村评估法（PRA）、ArcGIS空间分析和马尔科夫模型，对1985—2017年西庄村用地格局演变进行定量研究。［结果］在旅游业影响下，西庄村旅游用地和其他商服用地持续扩张，耕地、园地和林地持续缩小； 用地功能由传统的农业生产和居住向旅游用地和其他商服用地的多功能转变，且各阶段转变的主导类型不同； 以旅游用地为主的建设用地扩展强度呈倒“U”型趋势，不同阶段表现为渐进式蔓延扩展、爆炸式多点扩展、填补式内涵挖潜和稳定有序扩展模式； 旅游区位优势、旅游市场需求、先锋农户带动及政府乡村旅游政策是典型城郊旅游乡村用地格局演变的主导因素。［结论］乡村旅游业发展应结合村级“三生空间”划定，科学划定产业用地空间，控制旅游用地无序扩张，促进乡村空间有序发展。     

How Valuable Is On-Farm Work to Farmers?

In this article, we estimate a rural household model that allows specific tastes for working on-farm and can fit the data as well as the general model of Lopez . We use two samples that are matched by individual characteristics and adopt the method for matched surveys proposed by Arellano and Meghir . We replicate using French data, the empirical finding of Elhorst who reports evidence that implicit wages of on-farm family labor are significantly below off-farm wages. We then provide estimates of the lower bounds for preferences for on-farm work for males and females which are significant and positive.     

The cost of agricultural production risk

We examine the relative influence of preferences and technology on producers' ex ante willingness to pay for a reduction in production risk. A risk averse producer pays both an Arrow-Pratt risk premium to stabilize income and a ‘production premium’ to stabilize yield. Using soil-nitrate risks as our motivating example, we demonstrate that the production premium accounts for 40-85% of producers' willingness to pay for risk reduction. These results demonstrate the relative importance of technology over risk preferences when estimating the costs of agricultural production risk.     

Contract farming and smallholder incentives to produce high quality: experimental evidence from the Vietnamese dairy sector

In emerging markets for high‐value food products in developing countries, processing companies search for efficient ways to source raw material of high quality. One widely embraced approach is contract farming. But relatively little is known about the appropriate design of financial incentives in a small farm context. We use the example of the Vietnamese dairy sector to analyze the effectiveness of existing contracts between a processor and smallholder farmers in terms of incentivizing the production of high quality milk. A framed field experiment is conducted to evaluate the impact of two incentive instruments, a price penalty for low quality and a bonus for consistent high quality milk, on farmers’ investment in quality‐improving inputs. Statistical analysis suggests that the penalty drives farmers into higher input use, resulting in better output quality. The bonus payment generates even higher quality milk. We also find that input choice levels depend on farmers’ socio‐economic characteristics such as wealth, while individual risk preferences seem to be less important. Implications for the design of contracts with smallholders are discussed.     

How Sure Can You Be? A Framework for Considering Delivery Uncertainty in Benefit Assessments Based on Stated Preference Methods

The economic valuation of benefits resulting from environmental policies and interventions often assumes that environmental outcomes are certain. In fact, these outcomes are typically uncertain. This article proposes a methodological approach to incorporate delivery uncertainty into benefit estimation based on stated preference methods. In the study design of a choice experiment survey on land‐based climate change mitigation, we explicitly include delivery uncertainty as the risk that a proposed mitigation project fails to deliver emission savings. We find that respondents’ preferences do not change significantly after being confronted with choices that included risk of failure. However, failure risk itself does have an important impact on the preferences for delivering emission reductions. We show that delivery uncertainty can have a large impact on stated preference estimation of benefits of public programmes. This result should condition conclusions drawn from ex‐ante environmental cost‐benefit analyses that make use of such benefit estimates.     

Eliciting farmers’ subjective probabilities,risk, and uncertainty preferences using contextualized field experiments

Subjective probabilities as well as risk and uncertainty preferences influence many farmers’ decisions. Few contextualized field experiments were recently conducted to elicit farmers’ risk preferences. Contextualized field experiments use nonabstract framings that are familiar to subjects. Despite adding of context can undermine internal validity, such experiments are increasingly used in applied economics. Contextualized field experiments were never used to elicit farmers’ uncertainty preferences. This paper aims to fill this gap in the literature. This required the development of a new approach in which uncertainty preferences were estimated while controlling for farmers’ subjective probabilities regarding future agricultural outcomes. The experiment involves Scottish farmers’ decisions to plant traditional or new potato varieties. Monetary incentives and incentive compatible elicitation techniques, such as quadratic scoring rules and certainty equivalent multiple price lists, were used. Results from the estimation of Fechner models using maximum likelihood estimation procedures show that failure to control for subjective probabilities generates an underestimation of estimated uncertainty preferences. Farmers are more averse to uncertainty than risk, and their choices are noisier under uncertainty than risk.