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AbstractAlthough the link between agriculture and diffuse water pollution has been understood for decades, there is still a need to implement effective measures to address this issue. In countries with light-touch regulation, such as New Zealand and Australia, most efforts to promote environmental management practices have relied on voluntary initiatives such as participatory research and extension programmes; the success of which is largely dependent on farmers' willingness and ability to adopt these practices. Increased understanding of the factors influencing farmer decision-making in this area would aid the promotion of effective advisory services. This study provides insights from 52 qualitative interviews with farmers and from observations of nine farmer meetings and field days. We qualitatively identify factors that influence farmer decision-making regarding the voluntary uptake of water quality practices and develop a typology for categorising farmers according to the factors that influence their decision-making. We find that in light-touch regulated countries certainty around policy and also around the effectiveness of practices is essential, particularly for farmers who delay action until compelled to act due to succession or regulation. The contribution of this paper is threefold: (i) it identifies factors influencing decision-making around the uptake of water quality practices in a light-touch regulated country; (ii) it develops a typology of different farmer types; and (iii) it provides recommendations on policy approaches for countries with light-touch regulation, which has potential relevance for any countries facing changes regarding their agricultural policy, such as post-Brexit policy in the UK.

The Scottish Government is committed to reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from agriculture as part of Scotland's target to reach net-zero emissions by 2045. To meet this very challenging target, the sector and Government are likely to have to take steps to ensure uptake of all available emission-reduction technologies and practices, by all farmers. Understanding behavioural change and attitudes will therefore be critical in order to develop policies and work with industry to deliver this goal. This study explores the evidence for factors behind adoption of climate-friendly agricultural practices. It examines interventions to encourage practice change, and the key factors that influence successful adoption. Key findings: Adoption factors: -Most studies analyse the impact of more than one factor on adoption. This is in line with the wide understanding that behaviours are the outcome of interrelated and complementary influences. -We found adoption was determined partly by earlier or concurrent choices. -The evidence demonstrates that farmers are influenced by their peers (usually sharing geography and farm type), indicating the need for interventions supporting collaborative networks. -Adoption factors are useful for explaining different behaviour and/or defining shared characteristics of farmers. This helps identify which practices might be more successfully adopted in a particular region by specific farm types, and thus assist with tailoring policy interventions. Interventions: -The more closely tailored an intervention is to the characteristics and needs of the target population, the more effective it seems to be. -Compliance is positively related to the level of incentive payments. This suggests a focus solely on enhancing environmental outcomes may be less effective than coupling them with those interventions better tuned to economic considerations. -Training and advice, supported within a collaborative framework, are effective on their own and even more so when used as additional incentives to assist other forms of interventions, in both the short and long term. They may be more effective when framed as industry-focused, rather than climate-focused.

Developing efficient policy instruments and incentive schemes to promote the uptake of greenhouse gas mitigation measures requires some kind of prioritisation of the mitigation measures. An important consideration in this process is the estimated cost and costefficiency the measures. The high number of reports done in developed countries show a high variability in the country-level cost-effectiveness estimates, and suggest that approaches providing higher granularity at the spatial and farm type could suit better to the purpose of regional policy development. At the same time, there is still a gap in our understanding of economic mitigation potential of agriculture in developing and newly industrialised countries.To address these questions this report presents three studies. The first is a literature review of the cost-effectiveness estimates of mitigation measures published in the past 15 years, discussing the variability in these estimates. The second study reports on marginal abatement cost curves for beef cattle production in Brazil. Finally, the last report presents the conceptual basis of a tool to assess the financial implications of the mitigation measures to be used in parallel with the FarmAC model, ultimately providing mitigation measure costeffectiveness estimates specific to individual farms. Additionally, it describes the selection of mitigation measures which have been assessed at the farm level in Component 3 of the AnimalChange project.