Farmers' preferences for the design of a slurry hosing support scheme to combat soil compaction: Insights from a discrete choice experiment in Germany

CONTEXT: Following that 60% of the EU's soils are in unhealthy condition, the German government has identified soil protection as a key area of action within the framework of the Agricultural Strategy 2035 as a part of the development of a sustainable agricultural and food system. In particular, harmful compaction of topsoil and subsoil has a negative impact on yield, nitrogen efficiency and greenhouse gas emissions. Slurry hosing is an effective technique to reduce the risk of soil compaction by simultaneously minimising both the number of field passes and the weight of the machinery during slurry spreading. OBJECTIVE: This article assesses farmers' preferences for a stylised slurry hosing support scheme and ascertains the personal and farm characteristics that are likely to affect scheme uptake. METHODS: In a discrete choice survey of 100 German farmers, the respondents were asked to choose among different support schemes and the status quo. The support schemes on offer varied the subsidy rate, the spatial coverage of the scheme, the minimum proportion of a farm's manure to be applied via slurry hosing, the time window for slurry spreading, the commitment period, and the type of compliance monitoring. Since the participants' decision for or against participation in the support programme is binomial, the survey data was analysed by logistic regression in the form of a mixed logit model and a latent -class model. CONCLUSION: A mixed logit results suggest that the majority of respondents valued an extension of the time window for slurry spreading, whereas tighter programme requirements were mostly rejected. The latent -class model revealed three preference classes with different perceptions of the scheme's attributes. Younger farmers with larger farms and suitable site conditions for the hosing technique were identified as a potential target group for the scheme. SIGNIFICANCE: Overall uptake rates are likely to remain low should such a scheme be launched. Furthermore, the recommendations for scheme design are not universal. They rather apply only to the group of farmers surveyed, i.e. larger farms with largely favourable site conditions. Since smaller farms may have self-selected themselves out of the survey, it is not permissible to tailor the programme to these very farms on the basis of the results.