Research paper It's not right, but we do it. Exploring why and how Czech farmers become renewable energy producers Bohumil Frant  al * , Adam Prousek Department of Geography at the Faculty of Science, Palacký University,17. listopadu 12, 77146 Olomouc, Czech Republic article info Article history: Received 15 June 2015 Received in revised form 8 February 2016 Accepted 10 February 2016 Available online xxx Keywords: Farmers Adoption Renewable energy Energy crops Diversification abstract The paper provides empirical evidence on emerging on-farm renewable energy enterprises in a post- communist space, namely in the Czech Republic. In addition to exploring farmers' individual motiva- tions to adopt activities related to renewable energy production (biofuel crops growing, biomass pro- duction, operation of anaerobic digestion (AD) plants, and implementation of solar and wind energy projects), the study focuses on analysing regional and inter-firm variances in the level and types of adopted activities. A considerable discrepancy between stated personal attitudes of farmers (supporting the traditional view that farmers should only produce food) and actual practice of farms (dealing with renewable energy production for economic reasons) was detected. The extent and types of energy ac- tivities proved to be influenced both by geographical conditions and types of farm. While there are significant differences between the studied districts with different climatic and geographic conditions in the type and extent of energy crops and biomass cultivation, the expansion of AD plants and solar power systems was observed the same in both areas. The adoption of energy activities is positively correlated with company size and area of cultivated land, and negatively correlated with the degree of focus on livestock production. While growing biofuel crops is typical for large and medium-sized enterprises, individual farmers and small enterprises with less land area are more likely to produce biomass for combustion and use own grounds and roofs for implementing solar systems. Finally, the most common four types of currently adopted multipath renewable energy enterprises were identified. © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction “If subsidies for biogas energy were abolished, I would kill pigs and stop doing this business” (Manager of agricultural AD plant) Agriculture has a dual role as an energy user and as an energy supplier, notably by producing biomass and bioenergy. This energy productive function has been recently highlighted and promoted e particularly within the European Union (EU) countries e as an opportunity for economic diversification and development of rural areas as well as for enhancing energy sustainability, energy secu- rity, and mitigating global climate changes [1,2]. As a result of regulations, production quotas and subsidies pro- moted under the EU's Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and Energy Policy, many farmers have adopted new business models to diversify and stabilize their businesses, including organic farming, direct marketing, agro-tourism and renewable energy (RE) production ac- tivities [3]. Various crops are preferably cultivated to generate elec- tricity and fuel cars, the energy from biogas produced in agricultural anaerobic digestion plants (hereinafter AD plants) became for many companies an essential additional source of income to keep the farming business going [4,5]. Thousands of hectares of quality farm- land have been covered by solar panels, and farmers became owners of significant share of wind energy projects in some regions [6,7]. The policy support and development of agro-energy business has altered the land use dynamics, brought about new land use conflicts [8] and disconnections between policy makers and stakeholders [9,10]. Other unintended environmental and societal consequences include changes of landscape (e.g., visual intrusion by wind turbines and solar panels, landscape yellowfication due to the wide-spreading cultivation of oil seed rape), soil-erosion and deforestation [11], and concerns about food price increase and food insecurity [12]. While the literature is quite vast as concerns farmers' attitudes towards agricultural restructuring and diversification trends in general [13e17] or particularly as far as their willingness to grow * Corresponding author. E-mail address: frantal@geonika.cz (B. Frant al). Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Biomass and Bioenergy journal homepage: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/biombioe http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.biombioe.2016.02.007 0961-9534/© 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Biomass and Bioenergy 87 (2016) 26e34