Does climate change framing matter? Evidence from an experiment of crop advisors in the Midwestern United States
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Does climate change framing matter? Evidence from an experiment of crop advisors in the Midwestern United States Ajay S. Singh, et al. [full author details at the end of the article] Received: 24 July 2019 / Accepted: 19 March 2020/ # Springer Nature B.V. 2020
Abstract
Climate change is predicted to have increasingly negative consequences for the agricultural sector. Thus, it is important that crop advisors encourage farmers to adopt management practices that help mitigate or adapt to these changes. However, widespread skepticism persists regarding the existence of anthropogenic climate change and the need for conservation practices. Previous research indicates that individuals who are skeptical of the existence of climate change may be resistant to adopting conservation behaviors when they are described as addressing climate change impacts. Framing such practices as instead addressing “weather extremes” may be one method to encourage recommendations of such conservation practices. In the current study, we examined whether framing cover crops—a climate changeadaptive practice that enhances soil health—as a way to address that weather extremes rather than climate change would enhance crop advisors’ reported likelihood of recommending cover crops to their farmers, particularly among advisors who are skeptical of the existence of climate change. Support for cover crops among crop advisors in our sample was quite high overall, but as predicted, those who were more skeptical of climate change were less likely to recommend cover crops. However, framing condition (whether cover crops were described as addressing weather variability vs. climate change vs. no frame) had no main or moderating effects. These findings suggest that the use of climate change messaging in the framing of farm management practices may not negatively influence crop advisors’ recommendations as much as previously thought, but more research using other conservation practices is needed. Keywords Climate change . Framing . Conservation . Crop advisor . Cover crops
Highlights • Support for cover crops is high among Midwestern US crop advisors • Experiment used to ascertain support effects of different frames on cover crop support • Skeptics of anthropogenic climate change less likely to recommend cover crops • No effect of framing cover crops as addressing weather extremes vs. climate change
Climatic Change
1 Introduction The agricultural sector is intrinsically vulnerable to the impacts of climate change or the long-term rise in global average temperature and accompanying erratic changes in weather patterns (Parry and Carter 1989; Reilly 1995). Potential repercussions include short-term seasonal changes (e.g., drought and flooding), causing soil and crop damage, as well as longer-term climatic shifts that will affect growing degree days, weeds, and pest prevalence (Adams et al. 1998; McCarl 2010). Consequently, it is crucial for farmers to adopt farm management practices that address both shortterm and long-term impacts of climate change (Smit and
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