Agri-environmental schemes (AESs) are increasingly implemented to promote the adoption of environmentally friendly practices by farmers. We use a systematic review to explore the role of behavioural factors and opportunity costs in farmers' decisions to participate in AESs in Australia, Europe and North America. Behavioural factors influence how farmers value and perceive options, while opportunity costs relate to farmers' forgone utility when choosing to participate in schemes. We synthesise insights from 79 articles and over 700 factors explaining the participation in AESs. We find that a set of behavioural factors seem consistently connected to participation, including agricultural training, advice and having positive attitudes towards AESs. Moreover, several factors related to opportunity costs also have a rather consistent relationship with AES participation, including market conditions, implementation efforts, profitability, and management and contract flexibility. However, many relationships of behavioural factors and opportunity costs with AES participation are not as consistent and generalizable as sometimes portrayed and require context-specific interpretation. Those factors with mixed results can still provide insights into farmers' participation decisions as several of them are either ‘positively and insignificantly’ or ‘negatively and insignificantly’ related to participation, such as environmental attitude, trust and farm size. These results suggest that their relationship with AES participation depends on other factors or the setting, highlighting interactions and raising important new research questions. Overall, our results provide several entry points for both researchers and policy-makers, highlighting uncertainties in relationships between factors and participation that should be considered when designing policies.

中文翻译：

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行为因素和机会成本在农民参与自愿农业环境计划中的作用：系统评价

农业环境计划（AES）越来越多地实施，以促进农民采用环保做法。我们通过系统回顾来探讨行为因素和机会成本在澳大利亚、欧洲和北美农民参与 AES 决策中的作用。行为因素影响农民如何评价和看待选择，而机会成本则与农民在选择参与计划时放弃的效用有关。我们综合了 79 篇文章和 700 多个解释参与 AES 的因素的见解。我们发现一系列行为因素似乎始终与参与相关，包括农业培训、建议和对 AES 的积极态度。而且，与机会成本相关的几个因素也与 AES 参与具有相当一致的关系，包括市场条件、实施工作、盈利能力以及管理和合同灵活性。然而，行为因素和机会成本与 AES 参与之间的许多关系并不像有时描述的那样一致和普遍，需要根据具体情况进行解释。这些结果参差不齐的因素仍然可以为农民的参与决策提供见解，因为其中一些因素与参与“正相关且不显着”或“负相关且不显着”，例如环境态度、信任和农场规模。这些结果表明它们与 AES 参与的关系取决于其他因素或环境，强调相互作用并提出重要的新研究问题。总体而言，我们的结果为研究人员和政策制定者提供了几个切入点，强调了设计政策时应考虑的因素与参与之间关系的不确定性。