Drivers and barriers influencing the willingness to adopt technologies for variable rate application of fertiliser in lower Austria

Julia Blasch, Francesco Vuolo, Laura Essl*, Bianca van der Kroon

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to JournalArticleAcademicpeer-review

Abstract

Even though a broad range of technologies for variable rate application of nitrogen ferti-liser is available, there are hardly any documented cases of their use in Austria. In this study, the drivers and barriers of adoption have been investigated. A survey of 242 farmers in Lower Austria was conducted. The survey covered the farmers’ economic situation, concerns, and expectations regarding the future of their farms and their interest in precision farming technologies. A choice experiment was included in the survey to elicit farmers’ preferences for different features of variable rate application technologies. A series of multinomial logit, mixed logit and latent class logit models were run to analyze the choice experiment. Most farmers were interested in variable rate applica-tion, whereas technology costs, yield and environmental improvements were found to be important drivers of adoption. Also, farm size, farming system, technological level and network activities seem to play an important role in the uptake of variable rate application technologies.

Original languageEnglish
Article number1965
Pages (from-to)1-14
Number of pages14
JournalAgronomy
Volume11
Issue number10
Early online date29 Sep 2021
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Oct 2021

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
Funding: This research was funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation

Funding Information:
programme under grant agreement No 633945.

Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.

Copyright:
Copyright 2021 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.

Keywords

  • Adoption
  • Choice experiment
  • Nitrogen
  • Precision agriculture
  • Satellite data
  • Variable rate fertilisation

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