Insights from Ongoing CBEAR USDA Collaborations

Examples of CBEAR
Collaborations
Dr. Kent D. Messer
Co-Director, CBEAR
University of Delaware
Washington DC
May 17, 2016
Areas of Research Emphasis
(1) Respond to
USDA and Partner
Needs
(2) Conservation
Programs
CBEAR
(3) Eco-labeling of
Food
(4) Water Quality and
Quantity
Respond to USDA and Partner Needs:
National Association of Conservation Districts
• Concerns about declining membership and revenue.
– Only 2/3 of conservation districts currently give each year.
– The rate appears to be declining.
– Classic freeriding problem, related to the charitable giving
• Social comparison interventions have been shown to be
successful in the context of individual charitable giving.
• Little is known about the effectiveness of these
intervention in the context of group decision processes.
• Collaboration with NACD, SBST. ERS.
Respond to USDA and Partner Needs:
National Association of Conservation Districts
Interventions
1. Control group
2.
Social comparisons at the national level
– “You might be interested to know that last year 66% of districts in
the nation paid their annual dues. In fact, last year, the majority of
member districts across the country contributed $775 or more!”
3.
Social comparisons at the state level
– “You might be interested to know that over the last eight years 81% of
districts in Louisiana paid their annual dues. In fact, last year, the
majority of member districts across the country contributed $775 or
more!
Respond to USDA and Partner Needs
• CBEAR recently conducted a study of conservation
professional attitudes from throughout the world.
• 91% of respondents (n=246) believe that cost effective
conservation is a good idea, but rank it a low priority
compared to issues such as ‘fairness’, ‘transparency’, and ‘ease
of administration.’
• Respondents report the lack incentives as a key barrier
preventing cost effective conservation.
• CBEAR collaboration with The Conservation Fund.
Respond to USDA and Partner Needs:
NRCS Stewardship Evaluation Tool
• Resource Stewardship Evaluation is a new tool and service that
strengthens and modernizes conservation planning and helps
farmers, ranchers and forest landowners better identify their
conservation goals and improve their outcomes.
• This tool enhances the conservation planning process.
• Goal of the tool is to better communicate the alternatives offered
through conservation planning and science-based conservation
practice implementation
• As a new tool, a key objective is to communicate and education the
8,000 NRSF field staff about the tool.
• Collaboration with NRCS. SBST and ERS
Respond to USDA and Partner Needs:
NRCS Stewardship Evaluation Tool
Interventions
• Comparison (control) group:
• Messenger Comparison: (1) NRCS Chief Weller; (2) State
Conservationist; or (3) the Area Conservationists.
• Message Framing: (1) advantages to NRCS through facilitating the
conservation planning process; (2) advantages to landowners (NRCS’s
Clients); (3) the environmental benefits of using the RSET; and (4) a
combined message.
• Value of Repeated Messages: When communication with NRCS,
what is the correct balance between too many and too few reminder
messages.
Respond to USDA and Partner Needs:
NRCS Stewardship Evaluation Tool
Other possible interventions
Staff oriented
• Financial and non-financial benefits for staff who complete
evaluations.
• Competitions (tournaments) and social comparisons amongst staff to
encourage evaluations to be completed.
Landowner oriented
• Comparison (control) Group.
• Varying Benchmark Line Defaults.
• Multiple Benchmark Lines.
• Social comparisons.
Conservation Programs:
Histosol Soils & Greenhouse Gas Emissions
• Histosol (aka. muck) soils release greenhouse gases and
most are not enrolled in conservation practices that
could reduce these emissions.
Key questions:
(1) Impact of climate change language when
communicating with farmers.
(2) Value of webinar as outreach tool.
• Collaboration with FSA, NRCS, OCE, SBST and ERS
Conservation Programs:
Histosol Soils & Greenhouse Gas Emissions
Experiment targeted 10,000 of farmers in the upper Midwest.
Initial Letters
No evidence that climate change language turns
off producers on histosol soils in outreach efforts.
Reminder postcards
Reminder postcards
Conservation Programs:
Histosol Soils & Greenhouse Gas Emissions
Value of webinar
• Inviting people to visit website or participate in
webinar reduced the likelihood that they would visit
website at all by almost 60%.
• Why? The webinar letters are more dense with
instructions and thus less likely to be rea.
– This potential lesson is important because we often try
to communicate too much in outreach and believe that
people can just ignore pieces of it; but it may be that
people ignore it all.
Conservation Programs
Conservation Reserve Program
• Letters and social comparison to
farmers encouraging CRP renewal.
– If best message sent to all eligible farmers
with expiring CRP contracts, an additional
187,300 acres would enroll in the CRP at a
cost of $0.15 per additional acre.
• Collaboration with ERS, SBST and FSA
Conservation Programs
Agglomeration and Reverse Auctions
Importance of connectivity in
conservation.
• Develop bonuses for contiguity or
select directly for these connections.
• Collaboration with ERS and SBST.
Value of using “Reverse Auctions” for
delivering conservation contracts in a cost
effective manner.
• Collaboration with ERS.
Eco-Labeling of Food
• 2015 CAST Paper Issue
paper on Process Labeling
of Food
• Testing ways labels can be
used to increase consumer
demand foods food products
that have positive
environmental externalities
– Such as oysters in the
Chesapeake Bay or local
honey.
Eco-Labeling of Food
1. Evaluation of consumer response to food that has been
producer and/or processed with non traditional water sources,
such as recycled grey water, brackish water, treated fracking
water.
• New AFRI A Center of Excellence at the Nexus of Sustainable
Water Reuse, Food Crop Production, and Health
• CONSERVE project is a 4-year $10 million collaboration
– U of Maryland
– New Mexico State
– U of Arizona.
Water Quality and Quantity
Other Projects
1. Developing cost-effective framing
and nudges for voluntary water
use reporting in Georgia.
• Collaboration with Albany State
University
2. How to effectively display water
quality information to improve
agri-environmental outcomes
• Collaboration with ERS, U of
Rhode Island, U of Vermont
AgVISE (Agricultural Value Innovation
and Stewardship Enhancement)
(#1-6) Conservation Buffers
– Grass Buffers (5’, 15’, 30’)
– Forest Buffers (5’, 15’, 30’)
(#7-8) Phosphorus Filters
– Tanks
– Filters
(#9) Abandoned Poultry
Houses
No other conservation program
available for these practices.
21
Experimental Design: Defaults
•
A cursor-controlled slider was used to select any cost-share percentage between 0 and 100.
•
Breakdown of costs automatically calculated.
–
–
0% means that UD pays the entire cost.
100% means that the landowner pays the entire cost.
Results
– Defaults increased the cost share that farmer’s were willing to pay by 9 percentage
points.
– Social comparisons increased the likelihood of submitting a bid by 40.4%.
100
0
22
AgVISE (replication) and
HomeVISE
• Total Number of Participants: 180
• Total Number of Bids: 101
• Average bids for all practices were higher with the 100% default.
0% Default
Cost-Share
100% Default Cost
share
Total Number of Cost
Share Bids
47
57
Average Cost Share Bid
9.0%
40.3%
•
•
Added a new version (HomeVISE) targeting homeowners.
Collaboration with ERS
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How Can CBEAR Help You?
• What problems are you facing?
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Low program participation?
Need to reach out to new constituents?
Resistance to a new program or initiative?
Challenges with program application process?
Adding an innovative evaluation piece for a RCPP proposal.
What technical assistance techniques work best.
OMB’s call for “Evidence of Success”
President Obama’s call for integration of behavioral science.
• We can work together to improve program design and
measure the impacts.
Learn More &
Make it Happen
• Behavioral Insight Briefs
• Podcasts - “Nudges in the
Right Direction”
– Hosted by Michael McGrath
• Call for collaborations
• Talk with us
– Kent (302-831-1316)
– Paul (410-516-5127)
For more information go to:
www.centerbear.org
Contact Kent Messer
messer@udel.edu