Hypothesis 1. Significant differences in the farm (i.e. structural) and
farmer (i.e. socioeconomic and personal) characteristics between
non-adopters, early, medium and late adopters of organic farming can
be expected. This arises as a consequence of either non-adoption or
adoption at different stages of the diffusion process.
Hypothesis 2. It is expected that determinants that are related to
adoption play a different role in early, medium and late adoption of
organic farming and are of differing importance to each group.
Following from Hypothesis 2, we test more precise hypotheses in
relation to specific characteristics.
Hypothesis 3. Due to the fact that organic subsidy payments were
not available for early adopters as well as evidence from the literature
that early adopters were mainly driven by non-economic reasons and
that factors affecting the adoption of organic farming have changed
over time (Flaten et al., 2006; Padel, 2001), it is expected that early
adopters are more strongly influenced by environmental considerations
and less by profit motives than later adopters. Further, it is
anticipated that early adopters are less constrained by risk considerations
than later adopters.