Achieving mitigation and adaptation to climate change through coffee agroforestry: a choice experiment study in Costa Rica

We use primary data from a choice experiment carried out with 207 coffee farmers in Costa Rica, in order to study their willingness to adopt various agroforestry systems under various types of support. We test four adaptation strategies that are based on resistant coffee varieties introduction, timber tree species production and/or shade tree density increase. Revealed preferences suggest that most of the respondents do value the introduction of resistant varieties. They are willing to plant twice the number of trees in their plantations when these are combined with resistant varieties. Conversely, all agroforestry systems requiring timber trees to be planted are chosen significantly less often and on average, their adoption would require a compensation scheme. We moreover find that a large majority of respondents is very responsive to non-monetary rewards, namely a subsidized credit, a free trial of resistant coffee seedlings or technical assistance. We conclude that each of these incentivescould be used as an incentive to induce land use changes