The survey
We administered a survey to farmers in Alberta online using a third party contractor. Survey responses from 301 farms are included in this data set. Crop (grains, pulses, canola, flax, etc.) and beef cattle farmers with farms sales over $10,000 per year were included in the study, and it was specified that at least 30% of respondents need to be beef farmers. The survey consisted of 5 sample limiting questions, to filter out farms that did not fit the above criteria, and 38 survey questions. For my data analysis in this project, I am looking at farmer value and practice/project responses, and how they relate to one another, to see whether values significantly correlate with any specific practices or projects.
Questions
13. Please rank the following environmental issues in order of importance to you on your farm from 1 (most important) to 5 (least important).
Please indicate one ranking per item. Ranking More Important 1 2 3 4 5 Less Important OR Prefer not to answer a. Improving and/or maintaining water quality b. Improving and/or maintaining soil quality c. Improving and/or maintaining biodiversity and wildlife habitat d. Reducing/sequestering greenhouse gas emissions e. Improving and/or maintaining air quality Response key for questions 14 and 15: 1=Have adopted | 2=No, but I am willing to | 3=No, and I am not willing to | 4=Not applicable to my operation | 5=Prefer not to answer 14. Have you adopted any of the following practices on your farm?
15. Have you completed any of the following projects on your farm?
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Relationships
For the purposes of this project, I considered some basic relationships between farm size and activity adoption. I also considered the relationships between the values stated in Question 13 and the practices or projects taken up in questions 14 and 15. In particular, the relationships between the two most highly valued environmental issues (soil and water quality, see Results and Discussion), and practices that would affect these parameters (Zero Till, Maintaining Wetlands, Leaving Residue on Field, and Planting Nitrogen-Binding Pasture Cover).
After analyzing the relationships based on the proportions of responses, I used the chi-square test for proportion to check the significance of the results. |