Why do we so often repeat the same advice to farmers, only to see little or no change on-farm? In this episode, we explore why nagging, reminding, or pushing harder rarely shifts behaviour in the way we hope. For enablers of change, understanding this matters, because our impact depends not on how often we say something, but on whether it actually leads to action.
Let’s start with a familiar, non-farming example. Many of us have probably experienced the frustration of living with someone who doesn’t do a small but important thing we care about, like putting clothes away. It’s tempting to assume they don’t care enough, aren’t organised, or are being deliberately difficult. So we nag, hint, joke, remind, and sometimes snap at them. Our underlying belief is simple: if they cared more, they’d change their behaviour.
This same assumption quietly shapes much of agricultural extension. When farmers don’t adopt a recommended practice, we often default to explanations about attitudes, motivation, or values. They’re risk averse. They’re resistant to change. They don’t understand the science! From there, the response is predictable: more information, stronger messages, repeated reminders, and sometimes moral pressure. In everyday language, we nag.
Behavioural science gives us a different lens, and it starts with recognising a common cognitive bias known as the fundamental attribution error. Humans tend to explain other people’s behaviour by blaming who they are, while explaining our own behaviour by pointing to the situation we’re in. When we’re late, it’s traffic. When someone else is late, they’re careless. When we forget something, we were busy. When someone else forgets, they don’t care.
For farmers, this bias can be particularly damaging. Advisory messages often interpret non-adoption as a personal failing rather than a situational one. Yet farming decisions are made in complex environments shaped by time pressure, labour availability, cash flow, weather, regulations, family dynamics, and mental load. We’ve talked about the complexity of change before! When we overlook these factors and focus on ‘fixing’ the farmer, our interventions usually miss the mark.
Nagging fails because it targets the wrong thing. It assumes behaviour is driven mainly by attitudes and intentions, when in reality behaviour is strongly shaped by context. If a practice is hard to do, easy to forget, or doesn’t fit existing routines; no amount of persuasion will make it stick for most people. The effort required simply outweighs the perceived benefit in the moment.
A useful shift is to stop asking ‘How do we get farmers to care more?’ and start asking ‘What in their environment makes this behaviour hard right now?’ This reframing opens up very different, and often more practical, solutions.
Consider record keeping. Many advisors have talked about how farmers don’t keep timely, accurate records, despite knowing they’re important. The usual response is training sessions, templates, reminders, and warnings about audits or missed opportunities. But if record keeping requires logging into a clunky system at the end of a long day, it’s competing with fatigue, family time, and more urgent tasks. A behavioural approach might look instead at reducing friction by aligning record keeping with everyday jobs, using defaults, or capturing data automatically where possible.
Or think about adopting new pasture management practices. If the recommendation requires extra paddock walks, complex calculations, or changes at the busiest time of year, it’s unlikely to happen consistently. But if the practice can be embedded into routines farmers already have, such as during regular stock checks, or supported by simple decision prompts at the right time, uptake improves without anyone needing to ‘care more’.
The key insight is that effective behaviour change rarely requires people to fundamentally change who they are. Instead, it works by redesigning systems so the desired behaviour is the easiest option. This is why small changes, like default settings, physical cues, or altered layouts, often outperform education campaigns and reminders.
For extension practitioners, this has several practical implications. When a recommendation isn’t being adopted, it helps to resist the urge to diagnose a motivation problem too quickly and get curious about the day-to-day reality farmers are operating in. What gets in the way? What competes for attention? What feels like extra effort?
It’s also worth testing solutions that modify the environment rather than the person. This might mean changing timing, simplifying steps, providing tools that reduce effort, or restructuring choices so the preferred option is the default. These changes often feel less active than running a workshop, but they’re frequently more effective.
At the same time, it pays to be cautious with messaging that relies on guilt, pressure, or repeated reminders. While it can create short-term compliance, it rarely leads to sustained change and can damage trust. Farmers, like everyone else, generally know what they ‘should’ do. The gap is usually not knowledge, but feasibility.
Ultimately, nagging fails because it misunderstands human behaviour. People don’t wake up each morning as blank slates ready to adopt new practices. They rely on habits, shortcuts, and routines to get through their days. When advisory approaches work with these realities rather than against them, change becomes more likely and less exhausting for everyone involved.
This episode was inspired in part by behavioural scientist Kirsten Berman’s reflections on why nagging doesn’t work at home, and how redesigning systems beats trying to change people. The parallels with agricultural extension are striking, and well worth reflecting on. As usual, that article and a few others you might like to read, are listed in the resources under the blog post.
So, coming back to our opening question, why doesn’t nagging farmers work? Because behaviour is shaped more by systems than by speeches. When we stop blaming individuals and start designing better environments, we give good practice a fighting chance.
We’ve shared our thoughts, now it’s your turn. Drop a comment below the blog post with your experiences, tips, and ideas on why nagging doesn’t work and what has helped you support change more effectively. We’d love this to be a conversation, and as usual, we’d value your insights.
Thanks for joining us for this Enablers of Change episode. Don’t forget to subscribe to our newsletter to catch future episodes, and share this post with friends who might enjoy the discussion. Until next time, all the best.
Resources
Berman, K. (2026, February 5). Why nagging your spouse won’t make them clean the house (& what will). Substack. Available online.
Dolan, P., Hallsworth, M., Halpern, D., King, D., & Vlaev, I. (2012). Influencing behaviour: The mindspace way. Journal of Economic Psychology, 33(1), 264–277.
Ross, L., & Nisbett, R. E. (1991). The person and the situation: Perspectives of social psychology. McGraw-Hill.
Thaler, R. H., & Sunstein, C. R. (2008). Nudge: Improving decisions about health, wealth, and happiness. Yale University Press.