The ‘how to’ on incentivising farmers to adapt Fusarium mycotoxin management of wheat

Fusarium spp. infection in wheat can lead to the crop disease Fusarium Head Blight (FHB) and Fusarium damaged kernels (FDK), resulting in reduced wheat yield, loss of quality of the kernels and contamination of kernels with mycotoxins. Whereas FHB is a direct issue for the farmer, the presence of mycotoxins is also a problem downstream the cereal production chain posing health risks for animals and humans. Because mycotoxins are difficult if not impossible to remove further along the chain, agronomic management is mainly focused on reducing initial fungal infection and production of mycotoxins in the field by farmers. The objective of this thesis was to investigate how to incentivise farmers to adapt their agronomic management to reduce FHB and mycotoxin contamination in wheat. First, a literature review was performed to obtain up-to-date knowledge on Fusarium spp. infection, FHB and mycotoxin contamination of wheat and to identify effective agronomic management measures to reduce FHB and mycotoxins. Second, via an online questionnaire, information on farm and farmer characteristics, the pre-harvest measures implemented by the farmers, and farmers’ intention to adapt their agronomic management approach under specified incentive mechanisms was collected from wheat farmers in the Netherlands, Italy, Serbia and the United Kingdom. The extent to which Dutch farm and farmer characteristics explained the implementation of pre-harvest measures was analysed with probit models. Results showed that most farmers applied six or more different measures against Fusarium spp. infection and mycotoxin contamination in wheat and that the use of each pre-harvest measure is related to at least one other measure. The study on intention by Theory of Planned Behaviour showed that forty-six percent of the Dutch farmers had a positive intention to change their management in the next 5 years. Strengthening their beliefs - by demonstrating that a change in management will result in a higher wheat yield quantity and quality and safety (lower mycotoxin levels) - will result in a stronger attitude and, subsequently, a higher intention to change agronomic management. For Dutch farmers, interventions to strengthen these beliefs should preferably go by the most important referents for social norms, which were – in this study - the buyers and the farmer cooperatives. Lastly, incentives that could stimulate European farmers to adapt their agronomic management to reduce FHB and mycotoxins in wheat were identified. Bayesian Network modelling was applied to estimate the probability that farmers would adapt their current management practices under different incentives. The current intention of European wheat farmers to adapt their agronomic approach to reduce Fusarium spp. infection was positive for 51% of the farmers, although this percentage varied between the four countries. Results showed that most of the farmers would adapt their current management practices under the incentives ‘paid extra when wheat contains low levels of mycotoxins’ and under the incentive ‘wheat is tested for the presence of mycotoxins for free’. Results of this thesis can support policy makers in developing more tailor-made incentives to incentivise different groups of farmers to adapt their FHB and mycotoxin management.