Environmental innovation adoption: The role of environmental policy, agricultural education and advisory services

Environmental sustainability is a policy priority in Irish agriculture, with farmers adopting various innovations to mitigate agriculture's negative environmental impact. Understanding the factors that drive environmental innovation adoption across farm systems is critical for system-specific policy design. However, research examining these factors across Ireland's diverse livestock systems remains limited, particularly for cattle and sheep farms, whilst the application of panel data analysis across these farm systems is underexplored. Using innovation system theory, this paper investigates how environmental policy mechanisms (nitrate derogation and the agri-environment scheme), agricultural education, and advisory services influence environmental innovation adoption across Ireland's three major livestock systems: cattle, sheep, and dairy. The paper examines specific innovations including spring slurry application, liming and reseeding of farmlands, protected urea fertiliser use, and low-emission slurry spreading (LESS) technology. The analysis employs a seven-year panel dataset (2017–2023) from the Teagasc National Farm Survey (NFS). Random effects probit models reveal that agricultural education had a significant positive effect on the adoption of most innovations across all farm systems throughout the study period. However, policy mechanisms (particularly the agri-environment scheme) and advisory services have limited influence on innovation adoption across systems. The dairy-specific derogation policy had a significant positive effect on liming and low-emission slurry spreading (LESS) technology adoption. These findings highlight the importance of investing in agricultural education to improve farmer innovation uptake and point towards targeted policies such as the nitrate derogation as an effective policy mechanism for innovation adoption.