Does the risk attitude influence the farmers' willingness to participate in agri-environmental measures? – A normative approach to evaluate ecosystem services

Agri-environmental measures are often not as accepted among farmers as expected. The present study investigates whether changes in income risks and the individual risk attitudes of farmers may constitute an explanatory approach for the low acceptance of the measures. For this purpose, a normative model is developed that calculates the premia claimed by the farmers for adopting environmental measures under the consideration of income risks and different risk attitudes. We apply this model to environmental measures aiming at an increase of the faunistic diversity of species and show that changes in income risks and the decision makers’ risk attitudes can significantly influence farmers’ minimum compensation claims for the participation in agri-environmental measures.