Adoption intentions of smart weeding technologies – a lab-in-the-field experiment with German crop farmers

Smart weeding technologies (SWT) enable substantial herbicide savings via precise sensor-based application. This can enhance agrobiodiversity and make modern agriculture more sustainable. Currently, our knowledge about what will determine SWT adoption at farm-level is limited because few mature and economically viable prototype systems are available. We conduct a pre-registered and incentive-compatible online lab-in-the-field experiment with a convenience sample of 334 active German crop farmers to assess whether pro-environmental attitude, innovativeness and trust in farming data privacy explain hypothetical SWT adoption. We further test if an environmentally motivated subsidy, a green nudge, and a combination thereof affect adoption intentions. While attitudinal measures clearly modulate hypothetical adoption decisions in our sample, we detect no effect for the nudge and subsidy. Our findings have implications for policy and future research. Substantial policy support may be needed as long as environmentally beneficial smart farming technology remains privately less competitive than conventional alternatives. Moreover, targeting criteria for early adopters include pro-environmental attitudes and innovativeness.