Beneficial Management Practice Adoption in Five Southern Ontario Watersheds

This paper presents an analysis of 481 landowners' self-administered questionnaires from recent surveys in five southern Ontario watersheds. Farmers opposed “excessive” regulation but wanted government financial support for implementing environmental practices voluntarily. Logistic regression models for adoption rate and gross sales helped identify the variables that predicted the Adoption Rate Index (ARI) and Gross Farm Sales (GFS). Farm size, the adoption rate of best management practices, age and education predicted gross farm sales for combined data sets. Minimum regulations, financial incentives, outreach and technical support for voluntary programs geared to different farm types and sizes are needed for effective environmental management.