Environmental values of California winegrape growers and the use of barn owl nest boxes as a tool for integrated pest management

Synthetic pesticides from agriculture pose threats to biodiversity, and the adoption of alternative pest management is vital to meet rising crop demands while protecting native species. For example, the use of nest boxes for barn owls (Tyto furcata and T. alba) may help control rodent pests and reduce the use of rodenticides. However, the environmental perceptions of farmers and how receptive they are to alternative pest management practices remains uncertain. Traditionally, agricultural policies and programs have focused largely on the economic self-interest of farmers, but these narrow approaches have proven insufficient to describe and predict conservation behaviors, and the study of environmental value orientations (EVOs) may better explain farmers’ adoption of novel wildlife-friendly practices. The study of EVOs can help identify people as “mutualists”, meaning those who value the environment for its own sake, and “utilitarians,” meaning those who value the environment for the services it can provide. We surveyed 71 California winegrape growers in order to better understand how their underlying environmental values relate to the use of barn owl boxes and other sustainable practices. Overall, most winegrape growers had mutualist value orientations (64%). However, there was a disconnect between the use of barn owl boxes and EVOs, with most respondents (80%) reporting the use of owl boxes regardless of underlying values. This opens the door for future research to examine whether this is true of other wildlife-friendly farming practices.