Photo-sorting reveals diverging preferences for soil conservation and land-use intensification among Mediterranean farmers

The Mediterranean region has diverse farming landscapes with a unique mix of traditional and modern farming practices. Soil degradation and sustainable land and water management are key regional challenges. To understand the range of farmers’ perspectives on soil conservation practices and landscape development, we applied a visual method with cereal-producing farmers from Morocco, Spain, and Tunisia. Farmers were asked to sort 33 photos depicting soil-related and land-use practices in order of preference within a forced distribution and were subsequently interviewed for their reasoning. Three main perspectives were identified: (1) “Intensive conservation agriculture,” with preference for reduced tillage and learning new techniques, (2) “Above- and below-ground diversity,” with preference for crop rotation and landscape heterogeneity, and (3) “Conventional tillage and modernization,” with preference for conventional agricultural norms and mechanization. Our results highlight cross-cultural differences and the trade-offs that farmers perceive in terms of yield, biodiversity protection, and sustainable soil management, and inform ways to co-design soil conservation at landscape scale.