Assessing the effect of the CAP on farm innovation adoption. An analysis in two French regions

Literature on innovation adoption mechanism has emphasised the positive effect of Single FarmPayments (SFP) and Rural Development Payments on adoption of new technologies. In thiscontext, the expected process of CAP reforming after 2013 is likely to strengthen the role ofinnovation in the European Union (EU). The objective of this paper is to identify thedeterminants of the adoption of future innovation, in particular in connection to pastinnovation, and to assess the role of agricultural policy in the promotion of innovationadoption. The analysis is applied to two regions (Centre and Midi-Pyrénées) in France. Twoseparate Count models are developed in order to explain famers’ stated intention concerningdifferent intensities of innovation adoption under two different policy scenarios. Preliminaryresults highlight that the CAP strongly affects the decision to innovate and the innovationintensity, even if there is no statistical significance for the variable connected to the amount ofpayments or the level of payment per hectare.