Overcoming barriers to agri-environmental management at landscape scale: Balancing farmer coordination and collaboration with the aid of facilitators and pioneers.

Policy instruments that integrate the actions of multiple farmers are of growing interest for improving landscape scale environmental sustainability of agriculture. We conducted in-depth, semi-structured interviews with farmers in south-east England and applied thematic analysis to the responses to perform a qualitative investigation into the combined role of economic, social, and cultural barriers to cooperative environmental management, and identify possible solutions for these barriers. Interviewees recognised environmental benefits of cooperative management, but this was a low priority compared to other management activities, being seen as complex and time-consuming, with uncertainty over direct benefits to participants.