Do Either Farm Characteristics or Social Dynamics Explain the Conversion to Organic Farming by Dairy Farmers? An Agent-Based Model of Dairy Farming in 27 French Cantons

Abstract

The drivers of conversion to organic farming, which is still a residual choice in agriculture, are poorly understood. Many scholars argue that the farm characteristics can determine this choice but do not exclude social dynamics. To study this issue, we developed an agent-based model in which agent decisions to shift to organic farming is based on the comparison between the satisfaction with its current situation and the potential satisfaction with an alternative farming strategy. A farmer agent’s satisfaction is modelled with the Theory of Reasoned Action. This implied to compare agent productions over time with those of other agents to whom the former lend great credibility (“important others”). Moreover, a famer operates technical changes affecting its productions by imitating other credible farmers. While we used this model to examine simple and abstract farm populations, here we adapted it to Agricultural Census’ data about the farm characteristics of dairy farming in 27 French “cantons”. Exploiting domain expertise, data and previous research, we proposed some laws to model the impact of the conversion in terms of milk and environmental amenities productions of a farm. The simulations with “real” populations of farms confirm the strong impact of farm characteristics. However, our results also suggest a complex impact of social dynamics that can favour or disfavour the diffusion of organic farming through dynamic implicit networks of similarity and credibility. We confirmed the strong importance of the demographic evolution of the farm characteristics.

Keywords: Organic Farming, Adaptation, Credibility, Theory of Reasoned Action, Agent-Based Model, Social Influence Other articles with these keywords In JASSS From Google