Social learning to reduce pesticides: Evidence from a French agricultural extension programme
Rose Deperrois et al.
What the paper says
Social learning is likely to play a crucial role in disseminating new agricultural technologies and driving the agroecological transition in European countries. We evaluated a French pesticide reduction programme designed to train farmers and promote practices through demonstration days on participating farms. Using pseudo-panel data from surveys conducted before and after the programme’s launch, we found evidence of decreased pesticide use among cohorts linked to farms attending demonstration days. Our analysis, supported by a placebo test and various robustness checks, suggests that peer-sharing in training programmes can scale up effectively at no additional cost.
1 citation
Evidence weight
Balanced mode · F 0.40 / M 0.15 / V 0.05 / R 0.40
| F · citation impact | 0.16 × 0.4 = 0.06 |
| M · momentum | 0.53 × 0.15 = 0.08 |
| V · venue signal | 0.50 × 0.05 = 0.03 |
| R · text relevance † | 0.50 × 0.4 = 0.20 |
† Text relevance is estimated at 0.50 on the detail page — for your query’s actual relevance score, open this paper from a search result.