Education, attitudes and agricultural biodiversity: an application of randomised control method

The study1 attempts to investigate the role of education and environmental concerns in conserving ‘agricultural biodiversity’ of diverse farming systems in Sri Lanka. It analyses how farmers’ valuation of agricultural biodiversity alters with education on agricultural biodiversity and environmental concerns. The Choice Experiment (CE) Method, combined with Randomized Control Method (RCM) was used to collect data, while models such as Conditional Logit (CL) and Random Parameter (RP) Logit were used to analyse the collected data. The results clearly illustrate that farmers’ education level, as well as environmental concerns play a major role in the conservation of agricultural biodiversity. The overall findings of this study will help the policy makers to implement relevant policies in reducing degradation of agricultural biodiversity, which is increasingly posing a major impediment to agricultural growth, to the environmental protection and sustainable development.