IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ags/ifma07/345395.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

PR - An Investigation Into The Determinants Of Commitment To Organic Farming In Ireland

Author

Listed:
  • McCarthy, Mary
  • O'Reilly, Seamus
  • O'Sullivan, Aoife
  • Guerin, Patrick

Abstract

A dramatic increase in the number of organic farmers in Ireland since the introduction of financial support under successive agri-environmental programmes prompted us to investigate farmer motivations to convert to organic farming and to continue as organic farmers. An adapted Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) framework proved useful to investigate farmer motivations and behaviour. The findings support the TPB hypothesis in that behavioural intention (commitment to organic farming) was related to attitude, the influence of important others and the level of perceived behaviour control. The addition of self-identity and moral obligation measures in the regression increased the predictive power of the model, signifying that these two variables are important predictors of commitment. The organic farmers were segmented based on their level of commitment to organic farming, three segments were identified: wary, finance wary; and very committed. The findings point to an evolution in the type of organic farmer from a small-scale farmer very focused on environmental and agro-ecological issues to a larger-scale more commercially orientated farmer. However, the majority of full-time Irish organic farmers displayed a strong moral obligation to the environment and their continued commitment to organic farming was influenced by growing consumer demand for high quality healthy food products. Part-time organic farmers were found to be rather wary as to the future potential of organic farming.

Suggested Citation

  • McCarthy, Mary & O'Reilly, Seamus & O'Sullivan, Aoife & Guerin, Patrick, 2007. "PR - An Investigation Into The Determinants Of Commitment To Organic Farming In Ireland," 16th Congress, Cork, Ireland, July 15-20, 2007 345395, International Farm Management Association.
    • Handle: RePEc:ags:ifma07:345395
    DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.345395
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/345395/files/07McCarthy_etal_2.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.22004/ag.econ.345395?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Joyce Willock & Ian J. Deary & Gareth Edwards‐Jones & Gavin J. Gibson & Murray J. McGregor & Alistair Sutherland & J. Barry Dent & Oliver Morgan & Robert Grieve, 1999. "The Role of Attitudes and Objectives in Farmer Decision Making: Business and Environmentally‐Oriented Behaviour in Scotland," Journal of Agricultural Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 50(2), pages 286-303, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Henning Best, 2008. "Organic agriculture and the conventionalization hypothesis: A case study from West Germany," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 25(1), pages 95-106, January.
    2. Francisco J. André & Laura Riesgo, 2006. "A Duality Procedure to Elicit Nonlinear Multiattribute Utility Functions," Working Papers 06.02, Universidad Pablo de Olavide, Department of Economics.
    3. Peter Howley & Emma Dillon & Thia Hennessy, 2014. "It’s not all about the money: understanding farmers’ labor allocation choices," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 31(2), pages 261-271, June.
    4. Gómez-Limón, José A. & Gutiérrez-Martín, Carlos & Riesgo, Laura, 2016. "Modeling at farm level: Positive Multi-Attribute Utility Programming," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 65(C), pages 17-27.
    5. Hermann, Daniel & Musshoff, Oliver & Agethen, Katrin, 2014. "I will never switch sides: an experimental approach to determine drivers for investment decisions of conventional and organic hog farmers," 2014 International Congress, August 26-29, 2014, Ljubljana, Slovenia 183084, European Association of Agricultural Economists.
    6. Ryan, Mary & O’Donoghue, Cathal & Hynes, Stephen, 2018. "Heterogeneous economic and behavioural drivers of the Farm afforestation decision," Journal of Forest Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(C), pages 63-74.
    7. Lang, Le Dang & Tiwari, Aviral Kumar & Hieu, Hoang Ngoc & Ha, Nguyen Minh & Gaur, Jighyasu, 2023. "The role of structural social capital in driving social-oriented sustainable agricultural entrepreneurship," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 124(C).
    8. Kuhfuss, Laure & Préget, Raphaële & Thoyer, Sophie & de Vries, Frans P. & Hanley, Nick, 2022. "Enhancing spatial coordination in payment for ecosystem services schemes with non-pecuniary preferences," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 192(C).
    9. Joost M. E. Pennings & Ale Smidts, 2003. "The Shape of Utility Functions and Organizational Behavior," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 49(9), pages 1251-1263, September.
    10. Riesgo, Laura & Gómez-Limón, José A., 2005. "Multi-Criteria Policy Scenarios Analysis for Public Management of Irrigated Agriculture," 89th Seminar, February 2-5, 2005, Parma, Italy 239276, European Association of Agricultural Economists.
    11. André, Francisco J. & Herrero, Inés & Riesgo, Laura, 2010. "A modified DEA model to estimate the importance of objectives with an application to agricultural economics," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 38(5), pages 371-382, October.
    12. Ondersteijn, C.J.M. & Giesen, G.W.J. & Huirne, R.B.M., 2006. "Perceived environmental uncertainty in Dutch dairy farming: The effect of external farm context on strategic choice," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 88(2-3), pages 205-226, June.
    13. Lefebvre, Marianne & Midler, Estelle & Bontems, Philippe, 2020. "Adoption of environmentally-friendly agricultural practices with background risk: experimental evidence," TSE Working Papers 20-1079, Toulouse School of Economics (TSE).
    14. Murphy, Geraldine & Meredith, David, 2015. "A typology of cattle farmers in Ireland: An overview of data, method and indicators," 2015 Conference, August 9-14, 2015, Milan, Italy 212518, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    15. Nuthall, Peter L., 1999. "Managerial Ability (The Forgotten Resource) Its Assessment And Modification," 1999 Conference (43th), January 20-22, 1999, Christchurch, New Zealand 124495, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society.
    16. McGregor, Murray J. & Rola-Rubzen, Maria Fay & Murray-Prior, Roy B. & Dymond, John & Bent, Martin J.M., 2003. "Farm Management - Bugger the roots, where is the future?," 2003 Conference (47th), February 12-14, 2003, Fremantle, Australia 57923, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society.
    17. Mohamed Ghali & Maha Ben Jaballah & Nejla Ben Arfa & Annie Sigwalt, 2022. "Analysis of factors that influence adoption of agroecological practices in viticulture," Review of Agricultural, Food and Environmental Studies, Springer, vol. 103(3), pages 179-209, September.
    18. José A. Gómez-Limón & Yolanda Martínez Martínez, 2004. "Multicriteria Modelling of Irrigation Water Market at Basin Level," Economic Working Papers at Centro de Estudios Andaluces E2004/26, Centro de Estudios Andaluces.
    19. Geoghegan, Cathal & Kinsella, Anne & O’Donoghue, Cathal, 2015. "Policy Drivers of Land Mobility in Irish Agriculture," 150th Seminar, October 22-23, 2015, Edinburgh, Scotland 212658, European Association of Agricultural Economists.
    20. Bayard, Budry & Jolly, Curtis, 2007. "Environmental behavior structure and socio-economic conditions of hillside farmers: A multiple-group structural equation modeling approach," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 62(3-4), pages 433-440, May.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Farm Management;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ags:ifma07:345395. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: AgEcon Search (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ifmaaea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.