Socio-economic factors affecting the adoption of GHG emission abatement practices; the case of spring slurry spreading
2022
Tzemi, Domna | Breen, James Patrick
The agricultural sector in Ireland contributes almost 33% of Ireland’s total Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions with dairy cows and beef cattle being the biggest source of these emissions (EPA, 2016). Several studies exist indicating that changing the timing of slurry spreading from summer to early spring, would reduce the levels of ammonia emissions (Lalor and Schulte, 2008; Stettler et al., 2003). A knowledge gap, however, exists on the extent to which Irish farmers would be willing to change the time they spread slurry. The main objective of this paper is to investigate the influence of selected personal, farm and economic characteristics on farmers’ willingness to spread most of their slurry in early spring. In order to achieve that a binary probit model was used. The results showed that 50% of slurry spread in early spring in Ireland was positively influenced by advisory contact, investment in machinery per hectare and profitability of the farm. While off-farm income and the date farmers turn their cows out to grass had a significant negative effect. The findings of this study could assist advisors and policy makers in relation to the adoption of new practices by farmers.
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