The Role of Information Diffusion on Farmers Good Agricultural Practices: A Social Network Point of View – The Case of the French Agro-Environmental Practices

Abstract

Many recent researches focus on the sustainable agriculture and the advantage of the adoption of good agriculture practices for farmers, consumers and for the environment. In this work, we agree on one thing: better information diffusion leads to better adoption of good agricultural practices by farmers. The objective of our article is double. Firstly, we aim to propose an analytical model of the relevant factors which can help to better understanding the process of adoption of these practices. Our framework is developed around three main elements: the individual level (the information seeker), the economic level and the social network level. Secondly, we aim to test empirically this model, by confronting it to some field experience in agro-environmental practices. Our first empirical results put a lot of emphasis on the importance of the formal network in knowledge transfer. Finally, we discuss the implication for theory and practice and present the next steps of this ongoing research.
Classification-JEL:
Keywords: Network; good agricultural practices; information diffusion; knowledge