Research Setting and Data Sources

This dissertation focuses on agricultural producers in three counties in the Neuse River Basin: Wayne, Johnston, and Lenoir and two counties in the Tar-Pamlico River

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Basin: Nash and Edgecombe. These counties were selected because they are

geographically proximate, all located primarily in the Upper-Middle Coastal plain of the state (See Figure 1.1). They also share important agricultural features in terms of the amount of farm acreage and the types of crops grown. These counties are largely agricultural, with agriculture comprising from 38 to 59 percent of land use (U.S.

Department of Agriculture [USDA] Census, 2007). Soybeans rank as the first or second most prevalent crop grown in each of the five counties in terms of acreage (USDA Census, 2007). Corn, wheat, cotton, and tobacco are also top crops in most of the counties (USDA Census, 2007). These similarities are meant to help to control for differences in these types of features that could affect the producers’ adopted practices.

Data for this dissertation come from a survey conducted by trained interviewers from the North Carolina State University (NCSU) Center for Urban Affairs and

Community Services in December 2005. The N.C. DWQ funded the survey to collect information about agricultural producers’ use of nutrient BMPs in the middle Neuse Basin. The survey also sought to gauge producers’ knowledge of the Neuse Basin

strategy agricultural rules and to learn about their attitudes toward the rules, water quality issues, nutrient management training, and other topics. The author assisted Professors Thomas Hoban and William Clifford from the NCSU Department of Sociology and Anthropology in designing the survey, which was reviewed by a survey consultant at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Odum Institute. The survey consisted of questions about participation in nutrient management activities and the use of nutrient BMPs, Likert-type items to measure attitudes, and demographic questions. The survey instrument is attached as Appendix A.

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Individual agricultural producers serve as the unit of analysis for the dissertation and all data related to these producers come directly from the survey. The survey data analyzed in this dissertation are anonymous, per Institutional Review Board

requirements, and thus no additional details on the individual participants can be obtained.

The survey was conducted by telephone, with each interview lasting

approximately 15 minutes. The sampling frame in the Neuse Basin consisted of all agricultural producers in Wayne County, Johnston County, and Lenoir County who had signed up for the local strategy option of the Agricultural Nitrogen Reduction Strategy Rule in 1998 and 1999. Approximately 100 completed interviews were obtained from farmers in each of the three counties, for a total of 315 completed surveys.

In both Wayne and Lenoir Counties, the entire sampling frame was used in order to achieve 215 completed interviews. In Johnston County, which has a larger number of producers, two-thirds of the sampling frame was randomly selected, yielding 100

completed interviews. Because the data in the sampling frame were seven to eight years old when the survey was conducted, many of the phone numbers were not usable and there was high level of ineligibility due to attrition from farming and other factors. Using the American Association for Public Opinion Research’s response rate calculator for “Response Rate 3,” which includes the completed interviews in the numerator and the completed interviews, refusals, non-contacts, and a proportion of the cases of unknown eligibility (i.e., those who were contacted the maximum number of tries without success) in the denominator, this survey had a response rate of 74 percent This assumes that 30 percent of the cases of unknown eligibility were actually eligible to participate in the

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study. However, this assumption generates a response rate that is likely conservative given the quality of the information in the sampling frame. Therefore, the cooperation rate may be a better determinant of how representative the survey sample is of the target population in these counties. The cooperation rate was 86 percent This value divides the number of completed interviews by the number of completed interviews plus the number of refusals.

In addition to the 315 interviews completed in the three Neuse Basin counties, 100 telephone interviews were conducted in Edgecombe and Nash counties in the adjacent Tar-Pamlico River Basin. These interviews were conducted in order to collect data from producers who are operating under rules almost identical to those in the Neuse Basin, but who had not yet had the opportunity to participate in nutrient management training at the time of the survey. This sample was intended to function as a comparison group in order to assess more accurately the impacts of nutrient management training. The sampling frame for the Tar-Pamlico counties also consisted of producers who were signed up by the state under the relevant agricultural rules. In Edgecombe County, the whole sampling frame was used to complete 51 interviews and in Nash County, about two-thirds of the sampling frame was used to complete 49 interviews. Together, these counties had response rate of 71 percent and a cooperation rate of 84 percent. When all five counties are combined into one sample, a response rate of 74 percent and a