How distributional equity affects evolutionarily sustainable landscape management

Abstract: As the human population rapidly grows, ensuring food availability for everyone will require substantial agricultural intensification in a sustainable manner. This must however be achieved without negatively impacting ecosystems or stakeholders' (e.g. farmers) livelihoods. For stakeholders to engage in sustainable agricultural practices, it is important to evaluate “equity”, which represents a form of justice. Current literature indicates that individuals who express a perception of inequity are less likely to engage in sustainable landscape-management practices and to cooperate. This study explores distributional equity, concerning the distribution of cost and benefits between stakeholders, alongside other predictors and their association with landscape-management decisions by using behavioural games as an experiment. The game developed for this research lets participants assume the role of a farmer who needs to protect crops against pest attacks by choosing between different pest control methods. The pest control options rank naturally from least to most evolutionary-sustainable, based on the concern of their contribution to insect pesticide resistance. I predicted players' choice of pest control to be affected by their perceived performance in the game, mirroring the effect of distributional equity. Using an ordinal categorical mixed model for analysis, the results from 134 players showed only a small to non-existent effect of inequity on decision-making. This did not align with my predictions. The small effect from inequity suggests that it may not be an important predictor when choosing pest control methods or that players pay more attention to other predictors. Pest density and the complex interdependence of density, game-round and gender were all associated with pest control decisions, reinforcing current literature that emphasises that empowering women in agriculture may help achieving more sustainable agriculture.