Nudging farmers towards low-pesticide practices: Evidence from a randomized experiment in viticulture

Abstract

Planting fungus-resistant grapevines is an effective way to reduce pesticide use in grapevine production, but their uptake remains low. We explore whether providing personalized or general information on growers' use of environmentally toxic fungicides changes their planting intentions of fungus-resistant varieties (i.e., salience nudging), conducting a randomized experiment with 436 grapevine growers in Switzerland. We find no effect of providing personalized or general information on the intended plantation share of fungus-resistant varieties. However, exploratory analyses suggest that growers' perceptions about fungus-resistant varieties may cause the null result, with growers having noncompliant environmental perceptions being particularly prone to boomerang effects.