Local crowdfunding for low-emission agriculture

A field of sunflowers underneath a clear blue sky, with wind turbines in the background.

There are many opportunities for climate change abatement in the agricultural sector, but these are often costly to adopt for producers. Experience has shown that farmers have been slow to take up government programs that aim to stimulate so-called ‘carbon farming’. In this study, we investigate opportunities to use alternative funding sources, namely crowdfunding, to finance climate change abatement measures by farmers. A survey of Norwegian farmers elicited farmers’ interest in adopting climate change mitigation actions and their willingness to participate in crowdfunding to finance such actions. Results show that knowledge about crowdfunding is generally low, but that about one-quarter of respondents would be willing to try new abatement measures using crowdfunding. Using a discrete choice experiment, we show that crowdfunding campaigns that are shared across multiple businesses is preferred over individual actions. We also identify what types of farmers are most likely to participate in such crowdfunding initiatives.

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This webinar is being organised and run by the Arndt-Corden Department of Economics.