Eliciting citizen preferences for multifunctional agriculture in the watershed areas of northern Thailand through choice experiment and latent class models

Multifunctional agriculture is increasingly discussed as an alternative to conventional, mono-functional farming and its negative environmental impacts. This study aims at determining Thai society’s demand for agri-environmental services offered by a multifunctional agricultural system using two models, i.e. a Choice Experiment Model and a Latent Class Choice Model. The Choice Experiment Model (CEM) is employed to assess citizens’ willingness to pay for various attributes of multifunctional outputs. Extending from the CEM, the heterogeneity of citizens’ preferences across environmental attitudes and knowledge is captured through the Latent Class Choice Model (LCCM). Survey data was obtained from structured interviews with 373 respondents in the country’s two largest cities, namely Bangkok and Chiang Mai. The results of the CEM suggest that urban Thai citizens are willing to pay for changes toward multifunctional agriculture, as expressed in an increase of their monthly food expenses. Among the attributes of agri-environmental practices, “organic agriculture in combination with agro-biodiversity conservation” garnered the highest preference, followed by “organic farming as single practice” and “Good Agricultural Practice combined with agro-biodiversity conservation”. Income, gender, agri-environmental knowledge and environment-conscious attitude are important factors determining urban citizens’ support of multifunctionality. Findings of the LCCM revealed a strong heterogeneity in attribute valuation across three different classes of respondents, suggesting that policy-makers need to be aware of diverse preference patterns among Thai citizens with regard to specific attributes of multifunctional agriculture. We further conclude that enhancing environmental literacy and consciousness is a key determinant in gaining citizens’ support for multifunctional agriculture.     

Public preferences for post 2020 agri-environmental policy in the Czech Republic: A choice experiment approach

In November 2017 European Union commission presented a communication report summarizing the reform proposal of the post 2020 Common Agriculture Policy (CAP). The reform aims to address the environmental degradation associated with agricultural production as well as change in the structure of CAP payments. To this end, the Ministry of Agriculture in Czech Republic is preparing to set its priorities towards CAP’s reform. In this study we applied a choice experiment to investigate the public preferences for a set of environmental goods and services delivered by agri-environment-climatic voluntary measures (AECMs). A mixed logit model is employed to elicit preferences and explore their heterogeneity. We find that respondents oppose strongly funding removal. Among environmental attributes, water and food quality are the ones with the highest implicit marginal willingness-to-pay values. Preferences for no funding option are heterogeneous with socio-demographic and attitudinal variables explaining some sources of this heterogeneity. A continuation of national funding for the AECMs is expected to lead to a better state of environment with an anticipated positive welfare change of 669–932 mil EUR as opposed to funding removal. The change reflects the estimated welfare change resulting from moving from a low to a medium or to a high preservation state of agri-environmental attributes. We also project the budget change for AECMs considering the level of national funding and given the transfer share between Pillar I and II. Based on our results, we suggest that national funding can be informed by the welfare change scenarios and transfer shares are projected accordingly.     

Assessing the benefit of the agroecosystem services: Lithuanian preferences using a latent class approach

This study represents a first analysis of citizens’ willingness to pay (WTP) for agroecosystem services in a Baltic country (Lithuania). Since it is part of the European Union, Lithuania applied environmental agriculture schemes to support the production of agroecosystem services by farmers. Therefore, understanding the demand of such services may help policy makers to allocate funds. This study revealed that Lithuanian residents are concerned about environmental problems that may be caused by agriculture. Moreover, while the provision of agroecosystem services is demanded, citizens show very different tastes concerning these services. The application of a latent class model highlights three groups of citizens with different tastes and levels of WTP. Among the ecosystem services tested, the landscape provisions show the highest level of heterogeneity across the class. This study’s findings provide quantitative information concerning the demand for improvements in agroecosystem services through agri-environmental protection programmes. The obtained data supports the conclusion that choice experiments are a reliable tool to analyse consumers’ preferences related to environmental protection in Lithuania.     

Valuation of ecosystem services provided by irrigated rice agriculture in Thailand: a choice experiment considering attribute nonattendance

This research investigates how the public of a middle‐income country, Thailand, values ecosystem services associated with irrigated rice agriculture using a choice experiment. The results show a significant willingness to pay for services such as drought mitigation, water quality and the environment and maintenance of rural lifestyles and rice landscapes. The iterative procedure developed to fully analyze the incidence of attribute nonattendance (ANA) improved the model fit when compared with a multinomial logit model or an ANA model with potentially only one attribute ignored at a time (ANA‐1). Moreover, the inferred probability of the class of respondents having attended all attributes was 45%, compared to 9% with ANA‐1 model. However, it also suggests that 55% of the respondents made their choices by considering only two of the five attributes. Finally, this research also suggests that failing to consider ANA does not change the public ranking of scenarios contrasted by the services they would provide but would overestimate the WTP for these scenarios.     

Policies for sustainable development in the hillside areas of Honduras: a quantitative livelihoods approach

In this article, we use data for 376 households, 1,066 parcels, and 2,143 plots located in 95 villages in the hillside areas in Honduras to generate information needed by decision makers to assess the needs and opportunities for public investments, and design policies that stimulate natural resource conservation. We develop a quantitative livelihood approach, using factor and cluster analysis to group households based on the use of their main assets. This resulted in seven household categories that pursue similar livelihood strategies. We use a multinomial logit model to show that livelihood strategies are determined by comparative advantages as reflected by a combination of biophysical and socioeconomic variables. While 92% of the rural hillsides population in Honduras lives on US$1.00/capita/day or less, households that follow a livelihood strategy based on basic grain farming are the poorest because they often live in isolated areas with relatively poor agro‐ecological and socioeconomic conditions. Opportunities for off‐farm work tend to be limited in these areas and household strategies that combine on‐farm work with off‐farm work earn higher incomes. Per capita incomes can be increased by improving road infrastructure, widening access to land, policies that reduce household size and dependency ratios, and adoption of sustainable land management technologies that restore soil fertility. We used probit models to show that the latter can be promoted by agricultural extension programs and land redistribution. Investments in physical assets should be directed toward households that pursue livelihood strategies based on off‐farm employment or coffee production, while agricultural training programs are best focused on livestock producers.     

Modeling the drivers of urban land use changes in Lusaka,Zambia using multi-criteria evaluation: An analytic network process approach

Curbing the historically unplanned urban development in African cities crucially demands that the drivers of urban land use (urban-LU) changes are comprehended. However, this has become a complex decision problem for African urban planners and policy makers owing to the interconnections among urban-LU drivers and the complicated mixed development of planned and unplanned areas. Therefore, this study presents a new framework to model drivers of urban-LU changes in Lusaka, Zambia for the last 50 years using ground questionnaire surveys and the analytic network process (ANP). The study considers the growth of six urban-LUs, namely, unplanned high density residential (UHDR), unplanned low density residential (ULDR); planned medium-high density residential (PMHDR), planned low density residential (PLDR), commercial and industrial (CMI); and public institutions and service (PIS). The results revealed that socio-economic (55.11 %) and population (27.37 %) factors have been the major drivers of urban-LU changes while political factors (13.07 %) have also played a role. The role of biophysical factors (4.44 %) has been insignificant. The ANP model ranks UHDR (1st) and CMI (2nd) areas as the fastest-growing primarily driven by interactions amongst migration, economic opportunities, social services and land market. The growth of PMHDR, PIS and PLDR areas, ranked 3rd, 4th and 5th, respectively, has been largely driven by plans and policies and the political situation. The growth of ULDR areas is ranked (6th) as the lowest. The study discusses the urban planning and land use policy implications and suggests several strategies including strengthening of the local planning authority; improvement of the land tenure policies and delivery systems; establishment of satellite economic zones to decongest the city; investment in both green and blue infrastructure; and timely policy reviews.     

Public policy design: Assessing the potential of new collective Agri-Environmental Schemes in the Marais Poitevin wetland region using a participatory approach

The conciliation between different issues such as agriculture production, biodiversity conservation and water management remains unsolved in many places in the world. As a striking example, the wet grasslands of the Marais Poitevin region (France) presents many obstacles against the integration of these issues, especially in terms of public policy design. The socio-cultural situation in this region shows a high degree of political resistance and questions the relevancy of the current Agri-Environmental Schemes (AES) as an incentive for livestock farmers to adopt biodiversity friendly practices favoring the birds’ richness of the area. In this study, we explored the reasons for the poor effect of public policy using a two-fold approach based on ethnographic fieldwork and a role-playing game experiment. The ethnographic fieldwork aimed at understanding the local context and daily lives of farmers and current AES’s difficulties while the observation of the role-playing game session allowed for the exploration of current and alternative policy scenarios. The game represents an archetypal wetland that simulates the grass regeneration, water flows through a canal system and a surrounding network of cultivated plots (wheat, corn, sunflower, alfalfa) and pasture areas. The game is designed for eight players who embody their role in real life, i.e. water managers, biodiversity managers and farmers. The behaviors of the players during the session were observed and analyzed through semantic analysis. The game was structured around two scenarios to allow participants to explore, test and compare the current individual action-oriented AES with alternative collective public policy instruments. Such comparison brings new insights for public policy design. It also highlights the topic of integrated environmental management and questions the relevancy of participatory approaches in striving to resolve contradiction/dilemmas in environmental development.