Objectives

The main objective of the WP is to identify farmers’ interest in participating in a locally crowdfunded climate program, optimal design and preferred technologies or land management changes, and potential socio-cultural and economic issues associated with adopting a publicly visible crowdfunding approach.

For the empirical data collection, the WP closely collaborates with NORSØK and the project “Possibilities for environmental- and climate-friendly dairy production, Norwegian Agriculture”. We conduct individual interviews with six dairy farmers and map technologies and interest in climate-friendly organic and dairy production and emerging expenses with the installation of these technologies. In the interviews, the farmers are presented with developed business models from WP 2.3 and asked about their willingness to adopt these models and their preferences will be analysed for a revised business model that will then feed into WP 5 (Integration). Questions on socio/cultural barriers from WP2.2 will also be asked.

In addition, the project carries out a national survey amongst Norwegian farmers to elicit the climate-friendly technology and practice options that Norwegian farmers perceive as (a) most effective in mitigation climate change; and (b) most feasible to adopt in their current land management practices. We investigate which climate-friendly technology and practice options farmers find appropriate to crowdfund, e.g. more energy efficient technologies that use less fossil fuels and/or those with agronomic improvement (e.g., better use of manure). Such information is essential to support policy programs that aim to incentivize the uptake climate-friendly practices in Norway. Finally, we investigate the effect of these technologies on emission reduction, which is difficult to undertake but we  connect to the aforementioned existing project led by NORSØK that assists us in making rough estimates of reduced GHG emissions.

Publications

Pia Piroschka Otte (Ruralis), Alexander Zahl -Thanem (Ruralis), Sissel Hansen (NORSØK) & Natalia Mæhle (HVL) (May 2019). Norwegian farmers’ willingness to participate in a local climate crowdfunding program – results from a national survey (WP3) (R-5/19). The full report can be downloaded here AP3 rapport

 

Organizations: Ruralis, NORSØK, CSAFE, UWA

Leader: Dr Rob Burton