COS 99-1 - Using a socioecological framework to incentivize conservation grazing in agricultural land

Background/Question/Methods

Grassland ecosystems face some of the most severe declines due to human activity, particularly livestock grazing. With 85% of remaining grassland in the United States in private ownership, it is essential to understand how to work with farmers and ranchers to encourage conservation-oriented grazing practices on their land. Using a socioecological framework, we seek southwest Washington producer perspectives in informing local grazing and listed species protection policies. We developed a survey to better understand producer perspectives on conservation grazing by asking how landowners perceive potential incentives and barriers to implementing conservation grazing and which demographic and economic explanatory variables best explain incentive and barrier perception. We developed the survey using the Dillman survey design method, which was exempted from further review by the Washington State University Internal Review Board in February 2019. Using a mixed distribution method, we distributed the surveys in April 2019 and received 133 responses.

Results/Conclusions

Tax incentives and on-farm cost-share programs were the most preferred incentives. Selling property for restoration/conservation or registry/branding certification programs were the least preferred. “Loss of development rights if listed species found” and “Not enough financial assistance available” were the most highly rated barriers, followed closely by “Not enough technical assistance available” and “Conservation is too expensive.” Social stigma was the lowest rated barrier to implementing conservation grazing.

Ordinal logistic regression found respondent age and education level to consistently play a strong role in determining incentive perception. Respondents in the oldest age category (70+ years old) tended to be less interested in all of the incentives than respondents in the 30-49 and 50-69 age categories. Respondents with associate, bachelor’s, or advanced degrees tended to be more interested in the incentives than those without education beyond high school.

Managers and policy makers should focus on creating financial assistance programs for conservation grazing and include information about existing programs in outreach to producers. Younger, more educated producers would likely be most receptive to conservation outreach efforts.