Can we "nudge" farmers to save water?

Summary Finding ways to save water in agriculture is a crucial issue. In Europe, agriculture is the largest user of water, accounting for more than 50% of total withdrawals. In large parts of Europe, water use for irrigation already exceeds rainfall. In southern and eastern European countries, drought and water scarcity are particularly acute, and climate change will only worsen this situation. While agronomists try to make crops less water-dependent, or to make water use more efficient by improving equipment and techniques, and economists suggest taxing or better pricing water use, in this project we have attempted to reduce farmers' water use by using psychological levers, or nudges, not involving monetary transfers. Encouragingly, the nudge we tested reduced the highest consumptions. Unfortunately, it also increased the lowest consumption, and therefore had a neutral effect overall. This result shows that we still need to refine the design of nudges to make them more effective in practice.