Successful implementation of new strategies in the farm business – Facilitators and inhibitions found at Swedish sugar beet farms

This paper aimed at relating the implementation success of new action programs in farm businesses to the nature of the program and to personal characteristics and situation of the farmer. Hypotheses about how the nature of the action program and personal characteristics and situation of the farmer influence implementation success, defined as the extent to which the program solved the problem it was intended to solve, were developed and tested in a generalized logits model. The study was based on the observed implementation success among Swedish sugar beet farmers, who implemented action programs in response to the recent sugar beet reform. Data were collected through a postal questionnaire sent to a random sample of Swedish sugar beet farmers. Results showed that successful implementation of action programs was related to action programs that do not allow for incremental implementation, i.e. a situation where a more thorough change is done directly. Furthermore, successful implementation was found to be related to internal locus of control, absence of other major problems, and to analytical approaches to interpreting information. The results provided a ground for discussing how farm advisory services can be improved to help farmers to successfully implement new action plans