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UID:pretalx-soil-health-now-2026-BMKRC7@pretalx.earthmonitor.org
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Athens:20261209T093000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/Athens:20261209T100000
DESCRIPTION:Soil health depends fundamentally on the people who manage it. 
 In Greece\, farmers steward 45.5% of the national territory\, making their
  behavior central to any effort to regenerate degraded soils. Yet adoption
  of regenerative agriculture (regen ag) practices remains low\, not for la
 ck of proven benefits\, but because farmers face a sequence of compounding
  barriers—a "transition path"—each of which sharply reduces the probab
 ility of adoption.\nMapping the pathway of a farmer to transition reveals 
 further insights at crucial intervention points. First\, farmers must hear
  about regen ag at all: peer networks rarely transmit novel practices\, ag
 ronomists are not trained in them due to outdated agricultural curricula\,
  and commercial media has structural disincentives to promote practices th
 at reduce dependency on agrochemical inputs. Second\, farmers must judge t
 he information credible\, typically by seeking endorsement from universiti
 es or public institutions. Third\, the farmer must actually be the decisio
 n-maker on the farm—a condition disproportionately unmet by younger farm
 ers\, who are more receptive to innovation but rarely hold final authority
 . Fourth\, even a convinced\, empowered farmer needs accessible\, affordab
 le technical guidance to adapt practices to local conditions\, which is la
 rgely unavailable. Finally\, and critically\, regulatory and subsidy syste
 ms fail to recognize diversified systems like agroforestry: a farmer imple
 menting multilayered agroforestry may be forced to register as monoculture
 \, losing subsidy eligibility\, insurance coverage\, and market access for
  the crop grown.\nFramed through the lens of ambiguity tolerance—only a 
 minority of people readily accept ambiguous\, unclassified systems—this 
 analysis argues that regenerative practices remain structurally excluded r
 ather than simply under-promoted. Concrete interventions at each stage are
  necessary: integrating regen ag into agronomy curricula and subsidy class
 ification systems\, establishing peer-learning networks\, funding accessib
 le on-farm training\, and documenting real-world gaps through pioneer-farm
 er research. Understanding adoption as a probabilistic pipeline\, rather t
 han a single knowledge deficit\, reframes soil health policy: the goal is 
 not persuasion alone\, but removing systemic obstacles at every step.
DTSTAMP:20260825T175930Z
LOCATION:Amphitheater II
SUMMARY:Understanding the Barriers to Regenerative Agriculture Adoption: A 
 Behavioral Pathway Analysis for Greek Farmers - Sheila Darmos
URL:https://pretalx.earthmonitor.org/soil-health-now-2026/talk/BMKRC7/
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