Copyright copy 2011 by the author(s) Published here under license by the Resilience AllianceLubell M V Hillis and M Hoffman 2011 Innovation cooperation and the perceived benefits and costsof sustainable agriculture practices Ecology and Society 16(4) 23httpdxdoiorg105751ES-04389-160423

Research

Innovation Cooperation and the Perceived Benefits and Costs ofSustainable Agriculture PracticesMark Lubell 1 Vicken Hillis 1 and Matthew Hoffman 1

ABSTRACT A central goal of most sustainable agriculture programs is to encourage growers to adopt practices that jointlyprovide economic environmental and social benefits Using surveys of outreach professionals and wine grape growers wequantify the perceived costs and benefits of sustainable viticulture practices recommended by sustainability outreach andcertification programs We argue that the mix of environmental benefits economic benefits and economic costs determinewhether or not a particular practice involves decisions about innovation or cooperation Decision making is also affected by theoverall level of knowledge regarding different practices and we show that knowledge gaps are an increasing function of costand a decreasing function of benefits How different practices are related to innovation and cooperation has important implicationsfor the design of sustainability outreach programs Cooperation innovation and knowledge gaps are issues that are likely to berelevant for the resilience and sustainability of many different types of social-ecological systems

Key Words cooperation innovation knowledge networks resilience sustainability sustainable agriculture

INTRODUCTIONThe term sustainability has a long history in agriculturalresearch and practice as a concept designed to fosterintegration among economic environmental and social goals(Hansen 1996) The debate over sustainability has alsoinformed the ideas of resilience and linked social-ecologicalsystems in agriculture (Folke et al 2002 Milestad and Hadatch2003 Spielman et al 2011) Ikerd (199018) definessustainable agriculture as ldquofarming systems that are capableof maintaining their productivity and utility indefinitelyrdquo andthat are ldquoresource-conserving environmentally compatiblesocially supportive and commercially competitiverdquo Toachieve these goals many agricultural commodities andregions have developed local sustainability programs andpartnerships that encourage growers to adopt sustainablepractices (Warner 2007ab) Ideally sustainable practicesprovide environmental and social benefits and at the sametime reduce input costs and increase economic returns togrowers

We argue that the balance of economic environmental andsocial costs and benefits varies across different sustainabilitypractices and affects how growers make decisions and howoutreach will influence adoption (Pannell 2008) In additionknowledge gaps about the existence of a sustainable practicethe expected costs and benefits of adoption and exactly howto implement a practice can serve as major barriers to adoptionThese issues have important implications for improvingagricultural outreach programs that encourage groweradoption of sustainable practices We also think these issuesare likely to be at hand in most social-ecological systemsalthough the key variables driving their dynamics may varyaccording to institutional social and ecological contexts(Ostrom 2009)

We explore these ideas using data from surveys of outreachprofessionals and wine grape growers in California viticultureOutreach professionals advise growers and landowners aboutviticulture management and include cooperative extensionadvisers producer group staff vineyard managementconsultants Pest Control Advisers (PCA) and universityprofessors and researchers Outreach professionals communicateinformation about agricultural practices directly to growersand are therefore a crucial component of the knowledgenetwork for sustainable agriculture According to a studyconducted by the California Sustainable WinegrowingAlliance (CSWA) 30 of wine grape growers indicatedPCAs and 25 indicated Farm Advisers as their mostimportant source of information (Brodt and Thrupp 2009) Wesupplement the outreach data with data from the CSWA studyand semistructured qualitative interviews of wine grapegrowers in the Lodi Napa Valley and Central Coast wineregions of California These three regions have been leadersin developing regional sustainability partnerships and third-party certifications

We focus on two main ideas First we argue that adoption ofsustainable practices features the characteristics of two socialprocesses innovation (Tornatzky and Klein 1982 Feder andUmali 1993 Wenjert 2002 Rogers 2003 Ghadim et al 2005)and cooperation (Ostrom 1990 Lubell 2004 Nowak 2006)Innovation is more important for practices in which economicbenefits to the grower outweigh the costs of implementationwhereas cooperation is important for practices in which socialbenefits are a product of the joint efforts of many growersOur analysis ranks sustainable practices in terms of theireconomic costs economic benefits and environmentalbenefits In doing so we identify which sustainability practicesare adopted by growers through the processes of innovation

1UC Davis

Ecology and Society 16(4) 23httpwwwecologyandsocietyorgvol16iss4art23

or cooperation We make recommendations about the typesof outreach and education programs that will be most effectivefor encouraging both types of practices

Second we argue that the way growers learn and processinformation tends to preserve knowledge gaps aboutsustainable practices that are barriers to practice adoptionKnowledge gaps occur when there is a difference between theknowledge stored in the minds of growers and the objectivefacts about the existence effectiveness and implementationof a particular practice Reducing knowledge gaps is a researchpriority because they can be significant barriers to practiceadoption and the development of sustainable agriculturesystems (Reganold et al 2011) We propose an agriculturalknowledge network framework that hypothesizes because ofthe learning strategies and networks among viticulturedecision makers knowledge gaps will be more prevalent forpractices with high costs and low benefits

Sustainable viticulture is an excellent system for studyingthese issues for a number of reasons In 2009 a total of 531000acres of wine grapes were planted in California (USDA2009a) and the statersquos growers grossed about $23 billion(calculated from USDA 2009b) Concurrent with thisimportant economic activity there is conflict on environmentalissues including nonpoint source pollution from pesticides(Epstein and Bassein 2003) and nutrients (Ahearn et al 2005)water use for frost protection and irrigation (see National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration letter) and loss ofagricultural land to urban development (Espeljel et al 1999Merenlender et al 2005)

At the same time sustainability programs in the viticulturesector have developed quickly relative to other commodities(Warner 2007b) The importance of geographic and qualitybranding in wine marketing (Lapsley 1996) coupled with therecent increase in wine eco-labeling has opened the door tolinking the ecological social and economic benefits ofsustainability practices with consumer preferences (Warner2007ab) There are several regional programs in Californiawith a fairly long history among the most recognized are thoseassociated with the Lodi Winegrape Commission the CentralCoast Vineyard Team Napa Valley Grape GrowersAssociation and the California Sustainable WinegrowingAlliance Most programs began with integrated pestmanagement and evolved to become more systems-orientedlsquowhole-farmrsquo programs and most recently have developedthird-party sustainability certification programs

Initial studies suggest that these programs help move theviticulture sector toward sustainability goals includingimplementation of Integrated Pest Management (Klonsky etal 1998) abating political tensions at the urban-rural interfacedecreasing pesticide use increasing wine grape prices(Broome and Warner 2008) and encouraging growers to adoptsustainable practices (Shaw et al 2011) Although the long-

term economic environmental and social benefits ofsustainability programs remain to be seen increasing growerparticipation and practice adoption are necessary first stepsHow growers make decisions in light of the costbenefits andexisting knowledge about different practices is crucial tounderstanding the operation and effectiveness of theseprograms

THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES ON VITICULTUREDECISION-MAKING AND LEARNINGThere are two social processes that might affect agriculturaldecision making depending on the relative economic andenvironmental costs and benefits of different agriculturalpractices Which social process ie innovation orcooperation is most important has implications for the designof outreach and education programs We also propose aknowledge-system model that explains the persistence ofknowledge gaps regarding sustainable practices which are amajor barrier to adoption

Innovation cooperation and practice adoptionTwo different social processes affect the adoption ofsustainable practices in viticulture and other agriculturalcommodities Best known is the ldquodiffusion of innovationrdquomodel proposed by Rogers (2003) and applied to hundreds ofagricultural decision making studies (Prokopy et al 2008)Rogers (200312) defines an innovation as ldquoan idea practiceor object that is perceived as new by an individual or otherunit of adoptionrdquo The practices recommended bysustainability programs can be conceptualized as innovationsbecause they generally promote vineyard managementtechniques not previously used by a particular grower

The traditional diffusion model assumes that innovations willdirectly benefit the individual making the decision whateconomists call private benefits The individual learns aboutthe innovation through a social network or othercommunication channel and then adopts the practice if theprivate benefits outweigh costs The private benefitsassumption made the diffusion model particularly powerfulfor explaining the adoption of new agricultural technologyduring the Green Revolution when farmers worldwide werelearning about new production techniques that greatlyincreased yields (Feder et al 1985)

However from the standpoint of sustainability it is importantto consider the public costs and benefits of sustainabilitypractices (Wenjert 2002) Public costs and benefits accrue toother people not just the individual adopter Sustainabilitypartnerships encourage growers to adopt practices that provideenvironmental economic and social benefits to their broadercommunities Public benefits create collective actionproblems because growers have incentives to free ride on theefforts of others (Ostrom 1990 Lubell 2004 Lubell and Fulton2008) If everybody free rides then the public benefits are notprovided leaving everybody worse off than full cooperation

Ecology and Society 16(4) 23httpwwwecologyandsocietyorgvol16iss4art23

Table 1 Classification framework for viticulture practices

Negative Net Economic Benefits Positive Net Economic BenefitsPositive Net Environmental Benefits

Cooperation Practices (High-priority)Use of vegetative filter strips (WS)Written erosion control plan (WS)

Diversion structures for water flows (WS)Written company sustainability plan (B)

Pheromones for pest mating disruption (P)Use of alternative fuels (A)

Use only contact herbicides (W)

Innovation Practices (High-Priority)Computer disease forecasting models (D)

Visual observations to irrigate (WS)Spot spraying (P)

Reduced pesticide applications (P)ET-based methods to irrigate (WS)

Shielded sprayer to minimize drift (W)Irrigation management for disease (D)

Owl boxesbird perches (P)Need-based spraying for weeds (W)Narrowing width of treated strip (W)Reduced herbicide applications (W)

Pruning to reduce disease (D)Written monitoring for pests (P)

Dust reduction with cover crops (P)Regulated deficit irrigation (WS)Monitorrecord total energy (A)

Cover crops as refuge for beneficials (P)Soil tests for nutrient content etc (WS)

Written monitoring of beneficials (P)Dust reduction on roads (P)

Management for vine balance (V)Measure soil moisture to track water (WS)

Measure plant water stress (WS)

Negative Net Environmental Benefits

Cooperation Practices (Low-priority)Use of alternative electricity (A)

Use of compost (V)Not burning disposed vines (V)

Third-party certification (B)Releasing beneficials (P)

Mapping for soil water-holding capacity (WS)Remove infected vines (D)

Remove diseases woodfruit (D)Monitorrecord canopy microclimate (V)

Mechanical weed management (W)Leaf pulling (D)

Innovation Practices (Low-Priority)Mechanical viticulture activities (V)

Written succession plan (B)Written human resource plan (B)

Note Pest Management (P) Disease Management (D) Weed Management (W) WaterSoil Management (WS) VineManagement (V) Alternative Energy (A) Business Management (B) Practices are sorted within each table cell in decreasingorder of net environmental benefits For example computer disease forecasting models are perceived to have the highest netenvironmental benefit among high-priority innovation practices This ordering corresponds to the quantitative results inFigure 2

In this research we use surveys of outreach professionals tocharacterize 44 different vineyard management practices interms of their private costs private economic benefits andpublic environmental benefits The relevant practices wereidentified with the help of an advisory team of viticultureoutreach professionals and growers in our study regions anddivided into the broad categories of pest management diseasemanagement weed management water and soil managementvine management alternative energy and business

management The practices are representative of thoseincluded in Californiarsquos leading sustainable viticultureworkbooks (Ohmart and Matthiasson 2000 Dlott et al 2006CCVT 2011)

Table 1 lists the different practices and previews our findingsabout their relative private economic benefits publicenvironmental benefits and economic costs We classifypractices in which private economic benefits outweigheconomic costs as innovation practices whereby decision

Ecology and Society 16(4) 23httpwwwecologyandsocietyorgvol16iss4art23

making should follow the diffusion of innovation modelPractices in which economic costs outweigh benefits arecooperation practices whereby the realization ofenvironmental benefits requires collective action amonggrowers and free riding incentives are strong Of particularimportance for sustainability are high priority practices whichfeature substantial environmental benefits Although highpriority innovation practices such as cover crops are likely tobe adopted because they benefit growers high prioritycooperation practices such as water runoff and erosion controlpractices require collective action Low priority practices onthe other hand may have costs that outweigh anyenvironmental benefits How practices are classified in termsof innovation or cooperation has important appliedimplications for outreach and education which are discussedin the conclusion

The challenge of knowledge gapsKnowledge gaps occur when there is a difference between theknowledge stored in the minds of growers and otheragricultural stakeholders and objective facts about theexistence of the practice estimates about the costsbenefits ofa practice and procedural knowledge about on-the-groundimplementation To analyze the origins and consequences ofknowledge gaps we propose a knowledge network frameworkthat recognizes how growers are embedded in socialrelationships with a range of actors including other growersconsultants Cooperative Extension producer groups localnonprofit organizations and other stakeholders whocommunicate about agricultural practices and other issuesAlthough sustainability is mostly focused on implementationof practices by growers the knowledge and learning aboutpractices is distributed throughout the knowledge network

At any given time actors have different levels of knowledgeabout the existence performance and implementation ofagricultural practices Incentives to learn about a practicedepend on actorsrsquo initial evaluation of costs and benefits Ifthe initial evaluation of benefits is high there is incentive togather more information Conversely increasing estimates ofinitial costs create disincentives to learn about a new practiceThese learning incentives will lead to greater levels ofknowledge about practices with high benefit-cost ratios andlower levels of knowledge about practices with low benefit-cost ratios

Once an actor decides to put effort into learning about apractice they select from among a wide range of possiblelearning strategies For example growers may experimentwith a practice on their farm or a portion of their farm andobserve how the practice affects the economic environmentaland social goals with which they are concerned Outreachprofessionals might conduct scientific field research or consulttechnical literature to evaluate practices However individuallearning can be costly if the effects are difficult to observe

can only be learned after many seasons or risk major economicdamage if they fail Thus actors rely heavily on a range ofdifferent social learning strategies and the nature of sociallearning in a community can heavily affect the distribution ofknowledge and spread of innovations (Henrich 2001) Forexample some growers may use a conformist strategywhereby they only adopt a practice after the majority of othergrowers in their social networks also adopt the practice orthey may use a prestige-bias strategy whereby they adopt thepractices of large or successful growers or recognizedscientific experts in the system

The knowledge network framework comes full circle bydescribing how actors cognitively process the informationaccessed from the knowledge network Behavioral economistshave demonstrated that decisions are subject to loss aversionand status quo bias (Kahneman et al 1991) Loss aversionmeans that decision makers weight the disutility from a costmore heavily than the utility of an equal size benefit they willtypically discount expected benefits and inflate expected costsIn the context of agricultural decisions the current set ofpractices constitutes the status quo whereas new practices offerthe prospects of different benefits and costs Loss aversionpredicts that people will typically discount potential gainsfrom a new technology while overestimating costs Thesebiases become even stronger in the face of uncertainty andlead to a preference for maintaining the status quo set ofviticulture practices

In general we argue that the feedbacks among knowledgelearning and information availability will create knowledgegaps throughout the network that may reduce the rate ofpractice adoption among growers Our survey targets outreachprofessionals as key actors in the viticulture knowledgenetwork and measures knowledge gaps using the frequencyof ldquodont knowrdquo answers to questions about specificsustainable viticulture practices The knowledge networkframework predicts that practices with low benefits and highcosts will experience the largest knowledge gaps because oflow learning incentives combined with loss aversionConversely knowledge gaps will be lower for practices withhigh benefits and low costs

METHODSWe use three sources of data to investigate the costs andbenefits of sustainable practices and the role of knowledgegaps First we conducted a statewide Internet survey ofviticulture outreach professionals that targeted universityresearchers Cooperative Extension agents producer groupstaff and vineyard management consultants The outreachsurvey collected 120 respondents with an overall response rateof 43 Table 2 reports the distribution of outreachrespondents by geography and job type The geographiccategories are based on the regions identified by the CaliforniaAssociation of Winegrape Growers via their affiliated online

Ecology and Society 16(4) 23httpwwwecologyandsocietyorgvol16iss4art23

information source (california-vineyardscomwine-regions) The respondents are concentrated in the primary wine grapegrowing regions of California although the Central Coast isslightly underrepresented The respondents reflect the broadrange of professions involved with the viticulture knowledgenetwork with a concentration of vineyard managementconsultants with direct on-the-ground managementexperience Vineyard management consultants are importantboundary spanners because they often work directly with bothgrowers and other types of outreach professionals and manyof them are growers themselves

Table 2 Number of responses by region and job type

RegionNumber

Responded(Percentof total)

Job TypeNumber

Responded(Percent of

total)North Coast(includingNapaSonoma)

48 (40) Vineyard ManagerConsultant

(including PCAs andsustainability

consultants)

65 (54)

SacramentoValley(includingLodi)

24 (20) Viticulture ProducerGroup Staff

21 (18)

San JoaquinValley

17 (14) Cooperative Extension 15 (13)

Central Coast 16 (13) University 12 (10)Foothills 5 (4) Government 3 (3)South Coast 4 (3) Other 2 (2)No answer 6 (5) No Answer 2 (2)Total 120 Total 120

Second we accessed data from a 2008 survey of 101 winegrape growers participating in the CSWA SustainableWinegrowing Program (SWP Brodt and Thrupp 2009) TheSWP survey aimed to understand grower motivations andbarriers to practice adoption perceived impacts of thepractices and perceived effectiveness of the SWP

Third we conducted 16 in-person interviews of wine grapegrowers in Lodi Napa Valley and Central Coast winegrowingregions to ask their views about sustainability practices andprograms The semistructured interviews provided moredetailed and nuanced data about how growers make decisionsand their perceptions of practices such qualitativeethnographic data provides important background forinterpreting quantitative results

RESULTS INNOVATION AND COOPERATIONPRACTICESOutreach survey respondents ranked on 7-point Likert scalesthe effectiveness of 44 different viticulture managementpractices in terms of their economic costs economic benefits

and environmental benefits[1] Figure 1 reports the averageperceived benefits and costs of the different categories ofpractices Disease management practices are considered themost economically beneficial whereas water managementand energy practices are considered the most environmentallybeneficial Energy practices are also considered the mosteconomically costly in particular the high capital costs ofdeveloping alternative energy sources like solar Vineyardmanagement practices are also considered costly especiallyusing compost and disposal of removed vines without burningBoth economic and environmental benefits are perceived tooutweigh costs for disease water pest and weed managementpractices However there is variation within each categorythat can be seen when analyzing individual practices

Fig 1 Mean economic costs economic benefits andenvironmental costs for each category of practice

Detailed analysis of individual practices can identify thosepractices most likely to be influenced by innovation processesversus those most likely to require cooperation Figure 2quantitatively displays the net environmental and economicbenefits of the practices shown in Table 1 Net environmentalbenefits are calculated as average perceived environmentalbenefits minus average perceived costs for each practice andnet economic benefits are calculated as average perceivedeconomic benefits minus average perceived costs Themajority of practices (23 of 44 or 52) are high priorityinnovation practices which are perceived to have positiveeconomic and environmental net benefits These are some ofthe classic practices associated with integrated pestmanagement and other earlier outreach and educationprograms from which the broader sustainability programshave evolved It is noteworthy that all of the water managementpractices classified as innovation are associated withirrigation and directly affect input costs and vine health Lowpriority innovation practices that do not have as manyenvironmental benefits include mechanical methods ofviticulture management but also some of the newer business

Ecology and Society 16(4) 23httpwwwecologyandsocietyorgvol16iss4art23

management practices that are not traditionally considered inagricultural management

Fig 2 Categorization of practices by net benefits

High priority cooperation practices are defined as those forwhich environmental benefits outweigh economic costs butalso whereby economic costs are higher than economicbenefits Collective action is therefore necessary to realize theenvironmental benefits Relative to innovation practices thereare only seven high priority cooperation practices that areperceived to have large enough environmental benefits tojustify collective action

Interestingly the top three cooperation practices are associatedwith water management and erosion which essentially controlmaterials that are moving off the fields and therefore may havelittle direct return for the vineyard Although irrigationpractices are viewed as an innovation linked to inputs and vineproductivity controlling runoff is a classic negativeexternality that requires cooperation among growers to solveregional water quality problems The use of contactpostemergent herbicides instead of pre-emergent herbicidesfor weed management is similar to controlling erosion andrunoff because pre-emergent herbicides are potentiallyharmful to water quality (Tourte et al 2008) However thereis debate as to whether solely using postemergent herbicidesis more costly and less effective for overall weed control

Alternative fuels and sustainability plans are two relativelynew sustainable practices which are not perceived to have

large economic benefits Switching to alternative fuels oftenrequires substantial capital investment and sustainabilityplans add social and environmental issues to basic economicmanagement Using pheromones to disrupt pest mating isinteresting because the economic benefits and costs areperceived as nearly equal if the economic benefits wereslightly higher it would be classified as an innovation practiceHowever as will be seen later this practice also has one of thehighest levels of knowledge gaps which reduces ourconfidences in classifying it as an innovation or cooperationpractice We argue that such knowledge gaps also translateinto increased decision making costs in the field

Low priority cooperation practices form the second largestcategory whereby both net environmental and economicbenefits are negative Although these practices might deserveless initial investment we do not intend the results to beinterpreted as justifying removing these practices permanentlyfrom consideration Given that our measure of economic costsis linked to both environmental and economic benefits it ispossible that the aggregate environmental benefits of the lowpriority cooperation practices would outweigh the portion ofthe costs that are used to produce those benefits Furthermoreenvironmental benefits are difficult to quantify and ouroutreach respondents report considerable knowledge gapsabout these practices Therefore all of these categorizationsmust be considered as a first attempt with much more researchneeded on specific quantification of costs and benefits Suchresearch would also provide a further tool for validation of thesubjective estimates presented here

RESULTS CONNECTING OUTREACHPERCEPTIONS TO GROWER BEHAVIORCombining data from the outreach survey with the survey ofSWP growers allows us to analyze the connection betweenperceived costs and benefits and grower behavior andattitudes For 14 of the practices included in the outreachsurvey the SWP survey asked growers to identify the reasonthey adopted the practice and the perceived impact of thepractice Adoption reasons included environmental concernsand improved production and impacts included environmentalbenefits and increased yields The 14 overlapping practicesasked about in both surveys makes it possible to correlate theproportion of growers reporting different adoption reasons andimpacts with the average perceived costs and benefits ofpractices reported by outreach respondents Figure 3 displaysthese correlations for economic benefits (first panel) andenvironmental benefits (second panel)

For example the outreach survey respondents rated alternativefuels (labeled on Fig 3) as having the lowest economicbenefits with a mean score of 302 on the 1-7 scale None ofthe SWP grower survey respondents ie 0 mentionedadopting alternative fuels to increase yields or perceivedimproved productivity Conversely the outreach respondents

Ecology and Society 16(4) 23httpwwwecologyandsocietyorgvol16iss4art23

Fig 3 Correlation between outreach professional and grower opinions

rated leaf pulling for disease management and regularmonitoring of pests as having the highest economic benefitswith mean scores of 493 and 492 respectively Leaf pullingand monitoring were mentioned as increasing productivity by67 and 56 of SWP growers respectively Concurrentlyincreased yield was mentioned by 37 of SWP growers forleaf pulling and 40 for pest monitoring Overall thecorrelation between average economic benefits perceived byoutreach respondents and the proportion of SWP growers whomention adopting the practice to increase yield is 069 (p lt005) and 068 (p lt 005) for the percentage of SWP growerswho experience improved productivity In general more SWPrespondents mentioned these 14 practices providing greaterimprovements in productivity than improving yields whichsuggests these practices may have a larger effect on reducinginput costs while providing a similar or slightly improvedviticulture output

A similar story holds for environmental benefits The outreachrespondents rated leaf pulling as having the lowestenvironmental benefits with a mean score of 363 Only 27of the SWP growers mentioned adopting leaf pulling forenvironmental reasons and 37 mentioned observingenvironmental benefits On the other hand the outreach

respondents rated alternative electricity and vegetative bufferstrips as having the highest environmental benefits with meanscores of 583 and 582 respectively Among SWPrespondents 89 mentioned adopting vegetative buffer stripsfor environmental reasons and 81 mentioned adoptingalternative electricity for environmental reasons 86observed environmental benefits from vegetative buffer stripsand 67 from alternative electricity The correlation betweenthe average environmental benefits perceived by outreachrespondents and the percentage SWP growers who adopt forenvironmental reasons is 066 (p lt 005) and 070 (p lt 005)for the percentage of SWP growers who experienceenvironmental benefits Although not reported in the figuresthere is also a significant positive correlation (067 p lt 005)between outreach respondents of perceived economic costsand the percentage of SWP growers who mention that thepractice increases costs

The above analyses strongly support the validity of ourperceived costbenefit measures being directly related togrower decision making and perceptions of outcomes It alsohighlights the fundamentally economic nature of viticulturemanagement in which growers are constantly balancing thecosts and benefits of different decisions One of the very

Ecology and Society 16(4) 23httpwwwecologyandsocietyorgvol16iss4art23

Fig 4 Proportion of ldquodonrsquot knowrdquo responses for each question and category

clearest findings from our interviews is that economics comesfirst in viticulture management sustainability is not a relevantconcept if the agricultural enterprise goes out of business Theenvironmental benefits of different practices must be balancedagainst the overall profitability of the business

RESULTS KNOWLEDGE GAPS AND PRACTICEATTRIBUTESOutreach survey respondents were given the option ofanswering ldquodont knowrdquo when rating the costsbenefits of eachpractice The proportion of respondents who answer ldquodontknowrdquo for each practice is one way to measure knowledgegaps Figure 4 shows the average percentage of ldquodont knowrdquoresponses for each category of practice measured on theoutreach survey for environmental benefits economicbenefits and economic costs The distribution of knowledgegaps represented has several interesting points First thelargest knowledge gaps occur for environmental benefits inevery case but alternative energy Second knowledge gapsappear to be lowest for practices with a long tradition inagriculture such as pest management whereas newer practicesrelated to alternative energy and business management still

have high levels of knowledge gaps Third disease andvineyard management are two practices for which theknowledge gaps about environmental benefits are particularlyhigh relative to knowledge about economic factors Both ofthese categories are long-standing aspects of viticulturemanagement in terms of focusing on grape quality and vinehealth but the environmental implications have only recentlybeen investigated (Robertson and Swinton 2005 Schnepf andCox 2007)

Figure 5 provides an initial test of some of the hypotheses ofthe knowledge gap framework by reporting scatterplots withthe proportion of ldquodont knowrdquo responses on the vertical axisand on the horizontal axis the average ratings of economicbenefitscosts from among those outreach respondents whodid provide an answer for each practice The knowledgesystem framework predicts that knowledge gaps should bemost prevalent for practices with higher perceived costs whichreduce learning incentives while at the same time risk aversioninflates cost estimates Knowledge gaps about benefits areexpected to be lower as benefits increase because benefitsprovide an incentive to engage in learning Figure 5 is

Ecology and Society 16(4) 23httpwwwecologyandsocietyorgvol16iss4art23

Fig 5 Knowledge gaps as a function of practice benefits and costs

consistent with the expectation of the knowledge gapframework respondents are less likely to answer ldquodont knowrdquoas benefits increase but more likely as costs increase Thecorrelations between the percentage of ldquodont knowrdquo answersand economic costs is 030 (p lt 006) for economic benefitsthe correlation is -032 (p lt 005) and for environmentalbenefits the correlation is -042 (p lt 005)

Although not shown on the graphs there are even strongerpositive correlations between average economic costs andproportion of ldquodont knowrdquo answers on the private economic

benefit questions (r = 040 p lt 005) and the public benefitquestions(r = 033 p lt 003) This suggests that knowledgegaps about costs create an even greater disincentive to learnabout additional benefits of practices There is also a smallpositive but insignificant correlation (r = 012 not significant)between mean private benefits and proportion of ldquodont knowrdquoanswers about environmental benefits This is intriguingbecause it is consistent with a learning trade-off wherebyactors are learning about private benefits at the expense oflearning about environmental benefits

Ecology and Society 16(4) 23httpwwwecologyandsocietyorgvol16iss4art23

Figure 5 also displays the top five practices in terms of ldquodontknowrdquo responses for each type of cost and benefit These arespecific practices that need more research and outreachcommunication within the knowledge system Consistent withFigure 4 energy and business management practices such asalternative fuels alternative energy human resourcesplanning and succession planning have the largest knowledgegaps Pheromone mating disruption also has a large knowledgegap and this relatively new method of pest control requiresadditional agroecological research to understand whetherinnovation or cooperation factors will be the primary driversof decision making

Although these initial results are intriguing and consistent withexpectations the hypotheses derived from the knowledgesystem framework cannot be fully tested using cross-sectionaldata The knowledge system framework is really a dynamicand process-based model in which the elements of the systemchange over time Fully testing and exploring the modelrequires tracking over time how growers and other actorsengage learning strategies how the learning strategies interactwith the information environment how communication flowsacross knowledge networks and how information issubsequently processed back into the belief systems ofindividuals For example the research presented here does notdirectly measure what information growers are exposed to orwhat learning strategies they are using At this point our maingoal for the knowledge system framework is to provide somepreliminary evidence that will stimulate further research

CONCLUSION IMPLICATIONS FORAGRICULTURAL OUTREACH AND EDUCATIONWe argue that growersrsquo incentives to adopt sustainablepractices depend on the mix of economic costs economicbenefits and environmental benefits provided by any givenpractice The outreach survey identifies innovation practicesthat are cost-effective for most growers and cooperationpractices that require collective action on the part of growersthroughout a community to effectively achieve sustainabilitygoals The strong correlation between the perceptions of theoutreach professionals and the stated decision makingconsiderations of growers corroborates the validity of themeasurements Of course there is no guarantee that perceivedeffectiveness will reflect objective economic environmentaland social outcomes of these practices which in most casesare still subject to considerable knowledge gaps and requirefurther agroecological and social science research

Innovation practices are amenable to more traditional outreachmethods whereby county extension agents or other expertsdeliver information about the existence of the practicetechnical assistance with implementation and discussions ofthe benefits to the growers Once growers understand thesepractices are likely to provide private economic benefits interms of reduced input costs or better agricultural outcomes

they will make the economic decisions to adopt themHowever the outreach community should prioritize thoseinnovation practices with the largest environmental benefitsto enhance the overall sustainability of the viticultureindustry

Cooperation practices promise environmental benefits butonly if a substantial number of growers adopt them and freeriding incentives are avoided These practices should bepromoted using more community-based and participatorystrategies in which growers come together as an industrygroup or in multistakeholder partnership In this case practicesare adopted out of a sense of civic responsibility social normsof reciprocity and the desire to create a regional reputationfor sustainability The regional sustainability partnershipsdiscussed in this paper are good examples of this type ofefforts Other examples also exist such as the Rutherford DustSociety Napa River Restoration Team (wwwrutherforddustorgrdsindexcfm) whereby riparian landowners haveconverted millions of dollars of vineyard land to riparianhabitat to help restore the river

Knowledge gaps pose a substantial barrier to practiceadoption There is less incentive to learn about practices withhigh economic costs and loss aversion suggests that peopletypically inflate costs and discount benefits Thus it isimportant to focus research outreach and education on someof the practices that we found to have substantial knowledgegaps such as pheromone mating disruption alternativeenergy and succession planning Furthermore our resultssuggest that knowledge gaps are greatest regardingenvironmental benefits in particular for categories of practicessuch as disease and vineyard management that have long beenstudied with respect to agricultural productivity Such researchcan speed innovation by focusing on how to most efficientlyimplement practices while maximizing economic returns andenvironmental benefits

The issues analyzed here have implications for the broadergoals of sustainability adaptive capacity and resilience incoupled social-ecological systems (Anderies et al 2004Janssen et al 2006) Questions about innovation cooperationand knowledge gaps are likely to be germane for any type ofsystem in which actors must make decisions about differentenvironmental behaviors in the context of differentinstitutional arrangements In fact a potential criticism of thesocial-ecological system literature is a failure to recognize thatcooperation and innovation processes are jointly operating inmost systems However viticulture is a specific instance of acoupled social-agroecological system and how theseprocesses play out is likely to vary according to contextualvariables making it important to study these issues in othercomparative research systems Longitudinal research thattracks how behavior networks attitudes institutions andoutcomes change over time in multiple comparative sites

Ecology and Society 16(4) 23httpwwwecologyandsocietyorgvol16iss4art23

would be especially valuable to understanding the resilienceand sustainability of agricultural systems such as those studiedhere

RESPONSES TO THIS ARTICLE

Responses to this article are invited If accepted forpublication your response will be hyperlinked to the article To submit a response follow this link To read responsesalready accepted follow this link

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This research is supported by National Science FoundationGrant 0922567

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Anderies J M M A Janssen and E Ostrom 2004 Aframework to analyze the robustness of social-ecologicalsystems from an institutional perspective Ecology and Society 9(1) 18 [online] URL httpwwwecologyandsocietyorgvol9iss1art18

Brodt S and A Thrupp 2009 Understanding adoption andimpacts of sustainable practices in California vineyards California Sustainable Winegrowing Alliance San FranciscoCalifornia USA [online] URL wwwsustainablewinegrowingorgdocsNFWFSurveyReportpdf

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