Effective Engagement Techniques Across the Agricultural Conservation Practice Adoption Process.

Area of Science:

• Agricultural Science
• Conservation Ecology
• Environmental Psychology

Background:

• Enhancing ecosystem services on private farmlands requires landowner adoption of conservation practices.
• Current research often treats adoption as a binary event, overlooking the sequential decision-making process.
• Understanding landowner engagement is key to increasing conservation practice adoption.

Purpose of the Study:

• To model the stages of agricultural conservation practice adoption.
• To identify effective engagement techniques for each adoption stage.
• To evaluate the effectiveness of a visualization intervention across adoption stages.

Main Methods:

• Qualitative interviews with conservation practitioners in the Chesapeake Bay watershed.
• An online experiment assessing a visualization intervention's impact on landowner engagement.
• Analysis of practitioner-reported techniques and experimental outcomes.

Main Results:

• Practitioners employ diverse engagement techniques, often stage-specific.
• The effectiveness of engagement techniques, including visualization, varies significantly across adoption stages.
• A preliminary model of the adoption process and effective techniques was developed.

Conclusions:

• Conservation practice adoption is a multi-stage process requiring tailored engagement strategies.
• Research should account for stage-specific effectiveness of interventions to better inform practice.
• Effective engagement can be optimized by aligning techniques with landowner progression through adoption stages.