Sustainable Innovations on Arable Farms Uptake and Effect

Agricultural systems need to produce sufficient, high-quality food for a rapidly growing world population while reducing the environmental impacts of food production. Sustainable innovations integrated in efficient agricultural production systems are key to tackle food security and ecosystem challenges. Recent studies provide promising results on the potential of microbial applications to reduce hazardous inputs while increasing crop yields and quality. Microbial applications can improve nutrient availability in the rhizospheres of plants and increase resilience. However, it is unclear which factors influence their uptake and whether microbial applications are indeed sustainable. The aim of this PhD project is to investigate the adoption of sustainable farm innovations and their effect on farm efficiency and sustainability. In this PhD research, we focus on microbial applications. This PhD research is embedded in microeconomic and behavioural economic theories and methods. First, we investigate the relationship between farmers’ innovativeness and efficiency. Second, we establish the behavioural drivers and barriers for the uptake of microbial applications. Third, we analyse whether an informational video can stimulate the uptake of microbial applications and whether farmers’ risk aversion hinders adoption. Fourth, we develop a composite sustainability indicator which allows us to evaluate the overall sustainability impact of microbial applications. Ultimately, the results of this PhD project will provide in-depth insights into the effects of using microbial applications and how to enhance the uptake of microbial applications in agriculture.