The Case of Legume-Cereal Crop Mixtures in Modern Agriculture and the Transtheoretical Model of Gradual Adoption

Abstract

Mixed cropping (MC), the growing of two or more coexisting crops in one field, specifically the mix of cereal and grain legumes, can contribute to a more sustainable agricultural land use. Despite a variety of ecological benefits and promising grain productivity, applications are scarce among farmers in developed countries. In consideration of MC's potential this study interviews farm managers to profile characteristics of adopters. The transtheoretical model (TTM) is applied to capture adoption and adoption tendencies. The results point to a significant positive role of land owned vs. leased, adoption of reduced tillage and adoption intensity of legumes in general. The perception of technical barriers and the perception of MC's usefulness are also major drivers that proponents need to address. In general, the TTM provides a gradual measure of farmer's willingness to adopt, leading to more variance than binary classifications, which makes TTM especially useful to adoption research of marginalized ecological practices. (C) 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.