1. Who Cares About What?
Social Benefits of Farm Scale
Restoration and Adaptation Projects
JOHN JANMAAT
I.K. BARBER SCHOOL OF ARTS AND SCIENCES
THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA

2. 2
GARNERING PUBLIC SUPPORT
• Agriculture 1.5% of GDP (2013),
• 4.6% if entire food related industry included.
• Agriculture employs 1.56% of labour force.
• Most people have no direct connection to
agriculture and limited awareness.
• Policies, regulations, taxes, subsidies, and public
investments impact agriculture.
• Impact how agriculture can adapt to changing
climate.
• How to build awareness and public support for
agriculture in time of changes?

3. 3
AGRICULTURAL PRESTIGE DECLINING
• Farmers no longer uniformly seen as
‘good, honest hard working people’.
• Suspicions around:
• Agribusiness vs. small guy,
• Pesticides, GMOs,
• Animal welfare,
• Treatment of labour,
• Environmental impacts
• Consumers want good quality, safe
food produced in what they – not the
farmer – views as a responsible way.
• If you want consumer support, need to
respond to consumer desires.

4. 4
WHAT CONSUMERS WANT

5. 5
WILLINGNESS TO PAY
-0.5
0
0.5
1
1.5
2
2.5
1 2 3 4 5 6
WillingnesstoPay
Estimation Model
Nearby Projects Less Extinctions Less Weather Impacts

6. 6
PREDICTING INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES
Role of Government. This dimension is often described as left and right.
• Those who lean left believe that resources should be shared relatively equally and that
government has a large role in ensuring that such sharing takes place.
• Those who lean right believe that resources should be managed by individual owners
as they see fit and government should not be involved in sharing resources.
Left Right
○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○

7. 7
PREDICTING INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES
Relationship with Environment. This dimension measures views about the purpose of the
environment.
• Those who have a functional leaning see the environment as serving human needs,
and that protection of the environment is important in so far as doing so serves human
needs. Someone with this leaning would see a salmon bearing stream as worth
protecting because people enjoy fishing and eating salmon.
• Those with an ecological leaning see the environment as having value in itself,
independent of human use, and has a 'right' to be protected from harm. To people with
this leaning, a salmon bearing stream is worth protecting because salmon live there,
irrespective of any use humans make of the stream or the salmon.
Functional Ecological
○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○

8. 8
PREDICTING INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
AbsoluteValueoft-statistic

9. 9
LESSONS
1. Agricultural exceptionalism fading
• Can’t count on support just because farmers
2. Community members willing to pay for environmental services that can come from on-
farm projects.
• People want to get something for their investments
• Agriculture needs to look beyond on farm benefits, to benefits that larger
community is interested in.
3. Political and environmental attitudes powerful predictors of willingness to pay.
• Supporting agricultural resilience to climate change may be politically fickle.
• Absent agricultural exceptionalism, need to respect desires of community, rather
than erecting protections against the community.