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MBeetstra_Dissertation_FINAL.pdf (1.61 MB)

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Evaluating the Impact of Seasonality and COVID-19 on Farmers

Beetstra, Margaret Anne
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1607436947720928

Abstract Details

2020, Doctor of Philosophy, Ohio State University, Environment and Natural Resources.
Farmers have received a significant amount of attention and resources in recent years to encourage them to increase adoption rates of conservation practices, including winter cover crops, on their operations. Using practices like cover crops requires the farmer to put forth a significant investment in the form of both time and money due to the practice’s complexity. Despite recent efforts, and a general willingness to use cover crops among farmers, rates of cover crop use are stagnant across the Midwest. We were interested in exploring the seasonality of agriculture as an unavoidable macro level factor that has the potential to explain why using a practice like cover crops is so difficult for farmers. Farmers are much busier on-farm near spring planting and fall harvest than at other times of the year, and they tend to have uneven income generation throughout the year because most crops are sold post-harvest. Based on these observations, we first explored the extent of annual farmer financial and temporal fluctuations and evaluated if farmers think differently about cover crops at different times of the year using a panel survey of Midwestern farmers (see Chapter 2). Once we established the seasonal resource fluctuations and differences in cover crop perceptions across the year, we examined why this might occur using the theoretical framework of scarcity (see Chapter 3). Using interviews of the same farmers at multiple time points, we established that most farmers do experience a seasonal negative scarcity effect due to reduced resources paired with reduced cognitive performance. The negative scarcity effect can alter decision-making in a way that makes it difficult to prioritize long-term decisions which might help to explain numerous farmer behaviors, including the low adoption rate of conservation practices like cover crops that require long-term thinking. Finally, we investigated how farmers are handling the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic via interviews (see Chapter 4). We found that livestock farmers have generally experienced more challenges than those only growing crops and that some farmers are beginning to think about ways to improve their own farms and the entire food system to avoid major disruptions in the future. In combination, it becomes clear that circumstances outside a farmer’s control, notably resource fluctuations related to the seasonal nature of agriculture and a global pandemic, can influence farmer decision-making. Understanding these influences on farmer decision-making have important implications for researchers and the timing of their data collection efforts with farmers. In addition, practitioners and policymakers should consider resource fluctuations throughout the year as well as other disturbances to macro-level factors that ultimately influence the individual farmer to ensure higher levels of success.
Robyn Wilson (Advisor)
Eric Toman (Advisor)
Hamilton Matthew (Committee Member)
274 p.
Agriculture; Environmental Studies

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Beetstra, M. A. (2020). Evaluating the Impact of Seasonality and COVID-19 on Farmers [Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1607436947720928

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Beetstra, Margaret. Evaluating the Impact of Seasonality and COVID-19 on Farmers. 2020. Ohio State University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1607436947720928.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Beetstra, Margaret. "Evaluating the Impact of Seasonality and COVID-19 on Farmers." Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University, 2020. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1607436947720928

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

osu1607436947720928
113
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This open access ETD is published by The Ohio State University and OhioLINK.