Verringerung von Ammoniakemissionen durch Gülleansäuerung auf dem Feld: Teilnahmebereitschaft von Landwirten an Förderprogrammen

This article sought to determine farmers’ willingness to join a hypothetical support scheme for slurry acidifica-tion during spreading. Slurry acidification is a novel technique to reduce ammonia emissions, which has been pioneered in Denmark. In an online discrete choice survey of German livestock farmers, the re-spondents were asked to choose between different pol-icy schemes to promote the use of acidification tech-niques and an opt-out option. The support schemes were characterized by the following attributes: cost share, expected emission reduction as well as a relief from, and a tightening of, the German Fertilizer Ordi-nance. The relief was a waiver of the legal requirement to incorporate slurry immediately after spreading. The tightening related to the provision to account for the additional nitrogen in a farmer’s fertilizer planning. The data was estimated using a mixed logit model and latent class analysis. The estimated probability of choosing a support scheme was 90 % in the mixed logit estimation. All attributes were crucial for the decision to use acidification techniques during slurry spreading. Higher emission reduction increased the chances of participation in a support scheme significantly. Fur-thermore, the cost share offered and the exemption from the requirement to incorporate slurry immediately after spreading had a significantly positive impact on farmers’ willingness to participate. By contrast, the more of the extra nitrogen contained in acidified slurry had to be accounted for in a farmer’s fertilizer plan-ning, the lower the probability of participation.