Communicating risk in digital decision tools for pest control in farming

I am a postdoctoral researcher at the Center of Environmental Economics of Montpellier at INRAE. I work on risk communication of digital decision support tools on pesticide use under the supervision of Douadia Bougherara (INRAE) and Sophie Thoyer (INRAE). I am a PhD in economics specialized in Behavioral and Experimental Economics. My current research applies behavioral perspectives and experimental methods to the study of pest control decisions based on digital decision support tools.
I received my PhD in Economics from the University of the Basque Country in March 2023. During my years as a PhD student, I focused on the study of economic behavior with a special emphasis in experimental methodology. My goal for the post-doc is to apply these methods to the study of pest control decisions in order to design optimal strategies for risk communication in digital decision support tools.
The application of digital technologies to the field of agriculture is an issue of great importance, as it has the potential of increasing both economic and environmental efficiency. I would like to contribute to the field by applying my knowledge on behavioral economics in order to study how decision support tools can modify farmers’ behavior in pest control decisions in ways that are profitable both for the farmers and the society as a whole. 

• Starting date:  2nd November 2023
• Scientific field: Agricultural economics, behavioral economics
• Funding: Arvalis, Institut du Végétal
• Supervisors: Douadia Bougherara, UMR Cee-M, Inrae et Sophie Thoyer, UMR Cee-M, Inrae
• #DigitAg : Axe 2 : Innovations en agriculture numérique, Axe 4 : Système d’information, stockage et transfert de données, Challenge 6 : La gestion des territoires agricoles, Challenge 8 : Développement agricole au Sud

Keywords: Digital Agriculture, Pesticide, Pest Management,  Decision Support Tools, Risk communication

Abstract: Nowadays there are many decision support tools (DST) based on solid scientific knowledge and made available to farmers in order to reduce significantly the use of pesticides. However, they are underutilized by farmers. Our hypothesis is that they do not respond sufficiently to farmers' perceptions and attitudes towards risk, particularly in the way in which recommendations and the margin of uncertainty associated to the information leading to these recommendations are communicated. Hence, our question is: How new information provided by digital technology can help farmers to commit to reducing the use of pesticides by responding to biases induced by the perceptions and attitudes of farmers towards risks?

Contact: ibai.martinez-macias [AT] inrae.fr

Communications/Publications

Read the thesis manuscript