Rented farmland: A missing piece of the nutrient management puzzle in the Upper Mississippi River Basin?

Barriers and interventions that are particular to the nonoperating landowner (NOL) and operator decision context. This figure depicts five stages or steps of the adoption process as a ladder (Rogers 2003). There are barriers blocking progress at each step; however, there are also interventions that can help overcome each of these barriers. The ladder on the left depicts the barriers faced by owner-operators. The ladder on the right depicts the additional barriers faced by NOLs and operators. The teal arrows on the far right contain examples of the types of interventions that might help address barriers unique to the NOL and operator decision context. Each intervention is categorized by its behavior change approach (promoting awareness [A], incentives [I], and nudges [N]). The steps are illustrated as a ladder that the NOL and operator have to climb together because research strongly suggests that the operator is unlikely to ultimately adopt conservation without some support from their NOL, and the NOL cannot implement conservation alone (Petrzelka et al. 2013; Ulrich-Schad et al. 2016; Ranjan et al. 2019).