Advisory Services and Financial Incentives for Increasing Plant Food Production and Value Creation

In Switzerland, Farms within Canton Lucerne are randomly assigned to one of three arms — two treatment arms (advisory services (Arm 1); advisory services plus an experimental budget (Arm 2)) and an internal control (Arm 3); farms in the external control cantons (Aargau, Thurgau, and St. Gallen) are assigned directly to the external control (Arm 4), without random assignment among themselves.

Arm 1 — Advisory services (n≈75): Farms first receive an initial advisory session: a three-hour on-site consultation conducting a location and potential analysis with the farm operator, enabling an informed choice of a subsequent tailored advisory track: (1) speciality crops or speciality arable farming, (2) Agri-photovoltaic (Agri-PV) combined with speciality crops, (3) regenerative plant production, (4) agroforestry, or (5) a voucher for an equivalent advisory service of the farm's own choice. Tailored advisory is delivered by regional public advisory services and specialised consultancies.

Arm 2 — Advisory services plus experimental budget (n≈50): Farms receive the same initial and tailored advisory as Arm 1, plus a one-time unconditional cash payment of CHF 10,000, disbursed in July 2027 via the cantonal agricultural authority, conditional on completion of the initial advisory session. The same fixed sum is paid to every Arm 2 farm irrespective of farm size. Prior to disbursement, Arm 2 farms submit a non-binding intention document describing their planned use of the budget; no repayment obligation applies if a farm subsequently withdraws or uses the funds differently than stated.

Arm 3 — Internal control (n≈300–600): Located within the treatment region (Canton Lucerne); receives no treatment; participates in all three survey waves and provides farm census data access.

Arm 4 — External control (n≈300–600): Located in Cantons Aargau, Thurgau, and St. Gallen; receives no treatment; same survey and census participation as Arm 3.

Both control groups (Arms 3 and 4) are jointly eligible for a prize draw after each survey wave (20 farms, CHF 500 each, drawn from both groups combined), as compensation for survey participation rather than a treatment component.

2026-09-14

2029-02-28

Survey-based indicators (baseline, Year 1, Year 2):

Overall plant food production change: 7-point Likert item, retrospective 5-year (baseline wave only) and prospective next-year and 5-year (all waves)

Retrospective (baseline only): "By how much do you estimate the area used for plant food production (excluding feed) on your farm has changed over the past five years (since [wave year − 5])?"

Prospective (all waves): "By how much do you estimate the area used for plant food production (excluding feed) on your farm will change?"; Calendar year [wave year + 1]; In 5 years ([wave year + 5])

Area, tree count, and livestock-unit (LU) change:

Retrospective (baseline only): "How much do you estimate the agricultural land area (excl. specialty crops) used for human food production on your farm has changed over the past 5 years (since [wave year − 5])? (e.g., bread grain, potatoes, grain legumes, oilseeds)"

Prospective (all waves): "How much do you estimate the following quantities on your farm will change?"; arable land for direct human food production (change in ares); arable land for feed production (change in ares); specialty crops excl. vineyard area (change in ares); vineyard area (change in ares); greenhouse plant food production (change in ares); high-stem/field fruit trees (change in number of trees, fewer/more) — each assessed for Calendar year [wave year + 1] and In 5 years ([wave year + 5])

"How much do you estimate the number of livestock, in livestock units (LU), on your farm will change?"; cattle; pigs; poultry; horses/sheep/goats; other — Calendar year [wave year + 1]; In 5 years ([wave year + 5])

Income share from plant food production: level estimates (0–100%), collected in each wave; change derived by differencing.

"What percentage, do you estimate, does plant food production (excluding feed) contribute to your farm's agricultural income*?"

Current calendar year (all waves)

5 years ago (baseline only)

Next calendar year (all waves)

In 5 years (all waves)



Census-based indicators (baseline, Year 1, Year 2), linked via farm identification number:



Δ ha food-crop area, linked via farm identification number

Δ tree count, linked via farm identification number

Δ LU (livestock units), linked via farm identification number

Stated intentions and reported behaviour are treated as primary short-run outcomes given the expected lag between intervention and observable land-use change; census-based revealed outcomes serve as primary medium-run outcomes.

Survey-based indicators (baseline, Year 1, Year 2):

Risk perceptions of plant transition (exploratory mechanism): 7-point likert scale (no risk – high risk); introduced with: "We now ask about three types of risk on your farm: production risk, market and price risk, and external financing risk. If you do not currently operate a given farm branch, please imagine you were responsible for that branch."

Production risk: “How do you perceive the production risk of different production branches on your farm?”; rated for: arable land for direct human consumption; arable land for feed production; specialty crops, animal production

Market and price risk: “How do you perceive the market and price risk of different production branches on your farm?”; rated for the same four branches.

External financing risk: "How do you perceive the external financing risk of different production branches on your farm?"; rated for the same four branches.

Theory of Planned Behaviour constructs — attitude, subjective norms, perceived behavioural control (exploratory mechanism).

Attitude: semantic differential, 7-point scale, 4 item pairs. "Expanding plant food production (excluding feed) on my farm in calendar year [wave-year+1] would be for me..." — disadvantageous–advantageous; risky–not risky; effortful–effortless; discouraging–appealing

Subjective Norm: agreement scale, 4 items (2 injunctive/personal referents, 2 descriptive/social referents). "How much do you agree or disagree with the following statements?" — People who are important to me (family, partner, farmers nearby) expect me to expand plant food production (excluding feed) on my farm in calendar year [wave-year+1]; My most important advisors expect me to expand plant food production (excluding feed) on my farm in calendar year [wave-year+1]; Farmers in my region will expand their plant food production on their farm in calendar year [wave-year+1]; Farmers in my network will expand their plant food production on their farm in calendar year [wave-year+1]

Perceived Behavioural Control: "How much do you agree or disagree with the following statements?" — If I wanted to, I could successfully expand plant food production (excluding feed) on my farm in calendar year [wave-year+1]; It is up to me whether I expand plant food production (excluding feed) on my farm in calendar year [wave-year+1]; I have the skills and resources needed to expand plant food production (excluding feed) on my farm in calendar year [wave-year+1]

Value creation (market distribution): measured via the distribution of monetary revenue from plant food production (excluding feed) across sales channels, collected at each wave (baseline, Year 1, Year 2), with the reference year adjusted accordingly (2026 at baseline, 2027 at Year 1, etc.). Percentage shares sum to 100%. Change in channel composition across waves is derived by differencing wave-specific shares.

"How do you estimate the composition of monetary revenue* solely from plant food production (excluding feed) by sales channel for the year [current wave year]?

Direct marketing (%)

Retail/wholesale (%)

Cooperatives/collection points (%)

Trade (%)

Other (%)

Mechanism variables are analyzed exploratorily and are not used to test the hypotheses and establish confirmatory treatment effects.

The study follows all four arms across three data-collection waves over approximately three years (baseline September–October 2026, Year 1 November 2027, Year 2 November 2028), with an optional Year 3 wave in November 2029 pending a decision on study extension.

Experimental Design Details

Farm-level survey data are linked to farm census data via farm identification number across all waves, allowing comparison of stated (survey) and revealed (census) preferences. We recruit from Canton Lucerne as the treatment region and from Cantons Aargau, Thurgau, and St. Gallen as an external control region with comparable farm structural characteristics. Within both regions, farms are eligible if they are located in the respective recruitment region, are eligible for Swiss direct payments, and operate animal production at the time of recruitment (standard livestock unit > 0). Contact data for outreach is provided by the Federal Office for Agriculture (BLW); farms already at the BLW's cap on survey invitations in the current calendar year cannot be proactively invited but remain eligible and may register by contacting the project team directly; eligible farms are then granted access to the survey. Eligible farms with available contact data are invited near-exhaustively within each region. The study deliberately targets farms that have not already fully committed to plant food production; subject to sufficient overall sample size, the analysis may exclude farms for which plant food production already constitutes 91–100% of agricultural income at baseline, and farms that indicate at baseline they would not accept either treatment if assigned, with such restrictions pre-registered and applied only if they do not compromise statistical power. Eligible farms receive a written invitation letter and follow-up email, with a reminder letter and email sent to non-respondents two weeks later, and two information events (in-person and hybrid) before registration closes at the end of October 2026. Farms are informed of their arm assignment by letter post and email in early December 2026; farms assigned to Arms 1 and 2 must actively confirm participation via a confirmation link. Replacement farms are recruited from the pool of registered control farms with similar characteristics on pre-specified balancing variables where withdrawals or non-confirmations occur.

Not available

Following completion of survey registration, eligible farms in Canton Lucerne will be randomly assigned to the three study arms: 75 farms to Arm 1, 50 to Arm 2, and the remaining eligible farms to Arm 3. Farms in the external control cantons (Aargau, Thurgau, and St. Gallen) will be assigned directly to Arm 4 and will not enter this randomization procedure.

We will use rerandomization to improve covariate balance. Candidate allocations will be generated by computer and evaluated using Mahalanobis distance across a set of covariates grouped into priority tiers, including baseline outcomes, geographic characteristics, and other farm-level characteristics. Balance thresholds for each tier will be calibrated beforehand using simulated allocations and fixed prior to the final randomization.

For the final randomization, a new and independent set of allocations will be generated by computer, and the allocation ultimately used will be drawn uniformly at random from those satisfying all balance criteria. Randomization will take place after survey registration closes but before treatment delivery and before any post-treatment outcomes are observed.

The individual farm.

No

Non-clustered design

725–1325 farms

Arm 1 n≈75; Arm 2 n≈50; Arm 3 n≈300–600; Arm 4 n≈300–600

Monte Carlo simulation (1,000 replications, α=0.05, ICC=0.7 from BLW census data) indicates 80% power to detect β1 ≈ 0.26 SD (H1, pooled Advisory) and β2 ≈ 0.40 SD (H2, Budget increment, n=75 vs. n=50).