How to improve the adoption of soil conservation practices? Suggestions from farmers' perception in western Sicily

The knowledge of farmers' perception about the value of natural resources in agricultural management should have a central role in the orientation of decision-making processes in the rural policy. The final goal of such knowledge is to involve the population in the management of the territory with a bottom-up approach for a sustainable use of natural resources.Taking as case study the agricultural district of Western Sicily (Italy), which is one of the most important agricultural areas of Europe and is affected by soil degradation processes, our study pursued the following objectives: 1) to measure the adoption of the soil conservation practices (SCP) promoted by the Region inside the Rural Development Programs, with respect to some personal and farm features; 2) to find out the relationship between the personal and farm characteristics and the perceived environmental, aesthetic, productive, and management advantages, deriving from the adoption of SCP.The analysis was carried out using a ‘multiple choice’ answer questionnaire, administered to 125 farmers. Univariate statistics, Multiple Correspondence Analysis (MCA), and Chi-square test were used.Minimum tillage resulted the most adopted among the SCP not included inside Rural Development Program at the study time, while organic manuring the most adopted among SCP included inside Rural Development Program. The interviewed farmers revealed an inclination to perceive the production benefits (increased yield, and crop quality) and management benefits (production costs reduction, and working time reduction), stronger than the environmental and aesthetic ones. Farmers perceiving management advantages also perceived production benefits. Similarly, farmers perceiving environmental advantages also perceived aesthetic benefits. Effective profitability resulted the main efficient stimulus to the adoption of SCP, much larger than farmers' ecological attitudes, or the presence of subsidies. MCA and Chi-square test indicated that the farm size had the strongest influence on the choice of the SCP, and on the type of perceived advantages. Farmers asked to the Regional Authorities an improvement in technical advice services on the implementation of SCP, in order to make them profitable.