Adoption of soil erosion control practices in southern Spain olive groves

Abstract

This paper present results from a survey carried out in 2005 among 147 olive tree farmers from the Alto Genil River Basin in Southern Spain regarding the adoption of soil conservation and management practices. Olive tree groves in South-eastern Spain´s mountainous areas are subject to a high risk of soil erosion and have to incur in high costs of soil conservation. This results in great difficulties to comply with cross-compliance and to benefit from agri-environmental schemes. Our main objectives are to analyse the current level of adoption of soli conservation practices and to analyse which socio-economic and institutional factors determine such adoption. Three Probit models are estimated. Dependant variables are three different soil conservation practices, namely tillage following contour lines, maintaining the rests of pruning on the ground, and non-tillage with weedicides.