Climate change challenges agricultural production in Eastern Canada by affecting water resource availability. Farmers' adoption of improved water management practices and technologies can play an important part in the region's climate change adaptation strategy. To facilitate the diffusion of agricultural beneficial management practices (BMPs), it is essential to examine the factors that influence farmers' decision-making, and the barriers and facilitators of adoption. While determinants of adoption have been studied extensively, past research suggests that they are context dependent and that a gap exists in relation to understanding how BMP characteristics are perceived and how they shape adoption. Therefore, this article identifies some of the key factors in the adoption of improved water management systems in Ontario and Québec by focusing on differences between adopters and non-adopters. This study uses data from a survey of 70 fruit and vegetable growers. Results show that Canadian growers find important being good stewards of the land – being interested in minimizing their farms' impact on the environment and making good use of scarce resources. Farmers also believe society should help support the costs associated with safeguarding the environment. Growers interested in adopting the BMPs were likely to have less farming experience, diverse farming goals, higher educational attainment, and a higher degree of specialization in the production of tomatoes, cranberries or onions. While the majority of growers perceived the BMPs to be profitable, a better alternative and having capacity to reduce water use and improve yields, growers not interested in adopting these BMPs identified several issues that in their view act as barriers – initial cost of investment, and market instability. Policy responses aimed at enhancing diffusion of the BMPs, can be better targeted on priority regions and growers, incorporating in their communication strategy messages that resonate with growers' needs and take note of concerns they raise.

气候变化通过影响水资源可用性挑战加拿大东部的农业生产。农民采用改进的水资源管理实践和技术可以在该地区的气候变化适应战略中发挥重要作用。为了促进农业有益管理实践 (BMP) 的传播，必须检查影响农民决策的因素以及采用的障碍和促进因素。虽然对采用的决定因素进行了广泛的研究，但过去的研究表明它们依赖于上下文，并且在理解 BMP 特征如何被感知以及它们如何影响采用方面存在差距。所以，本文通过关注采用者和非采用者之间的差异，确定了安大略和魁北克采用改进的水管理系统的一些关键因素。本研究使用来自对 70 名水果和蔬菜种植者的调查的数据。结果表明，加拿大种植者发现成为土地的好管家很重要——对尽量减少农场对环境的影响和充分利用稀缺资源感兴趣。农民还认为社会应该帮助支持与保护环境相关的成本。对采用 BMP 感兴趣的种植者可能拥有较少的耕作经验、不同的耕作目标、更高的教育程度以及更高程度的番茄、蔓越莓或洋葱生产专业化程度。虽然大多数种植者认为 BMP 是有利可图的，一个更好的替代方案并且有能力减少用水和提高产量，对采用这些 BMP 不感兴趣的种植者确定了几个在他们看来是障碍的问题——初始投资成本和市场不稳定。旨在促进 BMP 传播的政策响应可以更好地针对优先地区和种植者，将与种植者需求产生共鸣并注意到他们提出的关注的信息纳入他们的传播战略信息中。