An Inertia Model for the Adoption of New Farming Practices

Nutrient emissions from agricultural land are now widely recognized as one of the key contributors to poor water quality in local lakes, rivers and streams. Nutrient trading for non-point sources, including farm land, has been suggested as a regulatory tool to improve and protect water quality. However, farmers' attitudes suggest that they are resistant to making the changes required under such a scheme where this requires them to adopt unfamiliar technologies and farm management practices.

This study develops a model of farmers" resistance to change and how this affects their adoption of new mitigation technologies under nutrient trading regulation. We specify resistance as a bound on the adoption of new technologies and allow this bound to relax as farmers' resistance to change weakens.