Climate change is predicted to have increasingly negative consequences for the agricultural sector. Thus, it is important that crop advisors encourage farmers to adopt management practices that help mitigate or adapt to these changes. However, widespread skepticism persists regarding the existence of anthropogenic climate change and the need for conservation practices. Previous research indicates that individuals who are skeptical of the existence of climate change may be resistant to adopting conservation behaviors when they are described as addressing climate change impacts. Framing such practices as instead addressing “weather extremes” may be one method to encourage recommendations of such conservation practices. In the current study, we examined whether framing cover crops—a climate change-adaptive practice that enhances soil health—as a way to address that weather extremes rather than climate change would enhance crop advisors’ reported likelihood of recommending cover crops to their farmers, particularly among advisors who are skeptical of the existence of climate change. Support for cover crops among crop advisors in our sample was quite high overall, but as predicted, those who were more skeptical of climate change were less likely to recommend cover crops. However, framing condition (whether cover crops were described as addressing weather variability vs. climate change vs. no frame) had no main or moderating effects. These findings suggest that the use of climate change messaging in the framing of farm management practices may not negatively influence crop advisors’ recommendations as much as previously thought, but more research using other conservation practices is needed.

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气候变化框架重要吗？来自美国中西部作物顾问实验的证据

预计气候变化将对农业部门产生越来越多的负面影响。因此，重要的是作物顾问鼓励农民采用有助于减轻或适应这些变化的管理实践。然而，对于人为气候变化的存在和保护措施的必要性，普遍存在怀疑。先前的研究表明，对气候变化的存在持怀疑态度的个人在被描述为应对气候变化影响时可能会抵制采取保护行为。将此类做法定为应对“极端天气”可能是鼓励此类保护做法建议的一种方法。在目前的研究中，我们研究了将覆盖作物（一种增强土壤健康的适应气候变化的做法）作为解决极端天气而不是气候变化的一种方式，是否会提高作物顾问报告的向农民推荐覆盖作物的可能性，特别是在顾问中怀疑气候变化的存在。在我们的样本中，作物顾问对覆盖作物的支持总体上相当高，但正如预测的那样，那些对气候变化持怀疑态度的人不太可能推荐覆盖作物。然而，框架条件（覆盖作物是否被描述为解决天气变异、气候变化与无框架）没有主要或调节作用。