The effect of collaboration on farmers’ pro-environmental behaviors – A systematic review

Given the impact of agriculture on the environment, pro-environmental farming practices are growing in importance. Collaboration has an essential role to play in addressing environmental problems and promoting pro-environmental behaviors. As ecosystems are interdependent and diverse, their management is shared among numerous groups of people who are bound to collaborate to achieve common objectives. Through their farming practices and behaviors, farmers have a key role to play in protecting the environment, and by collaborating with each other or with other experts in ecology, objectives at a larger environmental scale could be achieved. However, a systematic review of the effect of collaboration on farmers' pro-environmental behaviors has not been conducted yet. We identified and reviewed 44 articles published in peer-reviewed scientific journals. We classified the articles into 4 categories reflecting reasons for collaboration: program participation, technical training, collaboration among farmers, and peer influence. Moreover, to consider the hierarchical structure in which collaboration unfolds, we differentiated between symmetrical and asymmetrical collaboration, allowing us to estimate whether one type of collaboration is more efficient than another. Overall, collaboration has a positive effect on farmers’ pro-environmental behaviors in all four categories, and both in symmetrical and asymmetrical collaborations. The review provides insights for future research directions. In particular, future collaborations with farmers may focus on groups of farmers instead of individuals, as well as on proactively involving them in the decision-making process.