The vast majority of theses in this collection are open access and freely available. There are a small number of theses that have access restricted to the WWU campus. For off-campus access to a thesis labeled "Campus Only Access," please log in here with your WWU universal ID, or talk to your librarian about requesting the restricted thesis through interlibrary loan.
Date of Award
Spring 2023
Document Type
Masters Thesis
Department or Program Affiliation
Environmental Studies
Degree Name
Master of Arts (MA)
Department
Environmental Studies
First Advisor
Hollenhorst, Steven J.
Second Advisor
Laninga, Tamara Jean
Third Advisor
Carrie Brausieck
Abstract
Agroforestry (AF) practices mitigate climate change, provide ecosystem services, benefit communities, and create long-term economic opportunities for farmers and land managers worldwide. Despite these well-documented benefits, however, the adoption of agroforestry practices remains low. This study aimed to understand the barriers and incentives to adoption by applying the stated choice method to a case study of direct-to-market farmers in the four counties of northwest Washington State: Whatcom, Skagit, San Juan, and Island. Our results indicate that the scale of initial implementation and the upfront costs of seedlings had the largest relative impact on respondent decision making. Similarly, one early adopter in a community had an outsized effect on recruiting future adopters. These results provide important information for local extension and other support agencies, namely a predictive understanding of adoption behavior given different combinations of agroforestry attributes. More generally, our study demonstrates how to apply an easily scalable and replicable econometric method to better understand landholder preferences for agroforestry systems. Agroforestry adoption has long been hampered by a lack of rigorous ex-ante research, and the stated choice method provides an exciting way forward for future agroforestry adoption studies.
Type
Text
Keywords
agroforestry, adoption, stated choice method, ex-ante, Washington State
Publisher
Western Washington University
OCLC Number
1379252339
Subject – LCSH
Agroforestry--Washington (State); Agroforestry--Research--Washington (State); Sustainable agriculture--Washington (State); Land use, Rural--Washington (State)
Geographic Coverage
Washington (State)
Format
application/pdf
Genre/Form
masters theses
Language
English
Rights
Copying of this document in whole or in part is allowable only for scholarly purposes. It is understood, however, that any copying or publication of this document for commercial purposes, or for financial gain, shall not be allowed without the author’s written permission.
Recommended Citation
Stone, Ava, "Adoption of Agroforestry Practices in Northwest Washington State: An Ex-ante Case-Study" (2023). WWU Graduate School Collection. 1169.
https://cedar.wwu.edu/wwuet/1169