Changing environmental conservation attitudes: Evidence from a framed field experiment among small-scale coffee farmers in Colombia

This paper evaluates the effect of training and extension services on environmental conservation attitudes among small-scale coffee farmers in Colombia. Post-harvest coffee processing is traditionally very water-intensive and poses a threat to the environment, which is why it is of particular importance to improve the coffee farmers' environmental attitudes. Theory predicts that improved attitudes towards a certain behavior will under certain circumstances also translate into behavioral changes - hence, in this context, an increase in environmental conservation. Two different measures of attitudes on environmental conservation are assessed: stated attitudes (self-reported survey questions) and revealed attitude (elicited via a framed field experiment). For the latter, farmers were offered to donate an endowment to a local reforestation project, where the farmers' willingness to donate is assumed to correlate with the valuation of environmental conservation. Based on the lower bound estimates, I do not find significant impacts of training participation on stated or revealed attitudes towards environmental conservation. Yet, at the upper bound, a positive and statistically significant effect on stated attitudes can be detected. This paper also makes a methodological contribution by critically reflecting on the suitability of both attitude measures to proxy for environmental conservation attitudes.