**3. Results and Discussion**

### *3.1. Farm Characteristics*

Our sample was representative of French farms (Table 3) in terms of the mean age of farmers, legal status and water sources. However, farms in our sample had more utilized agricultural area (UAA) and mean irrigable area than the mean of the Midi-Pyrénées (Midi-Pyrénées is part of the new Occitanie region) region. Having larger farms explained the bigger equipment needed for irrigation (center pivot) and the use of a larger volume of water. Nineteen farmers have received post-secondary education (at least 2 years). Most of the farmers grew grain maize (24/34), did not till the soil (24/34) and did not irrigate at sowing (20/34). Although our sample is not entirely representative of the Occitanie region, potential results of the study can provide knowledge about maize farming systems in Occitanie, in particular, for large farms in terms of surface area and irrigation water consumption.

**Table 3.** Characteristics of surveyed and reference farms. Reference data are at the regional scale, when available (former Midi-Pyrénées region, corresponding to the western Occitanie region), or the country scale (France). UAA: utilized agricultural area.


#### *3.2. Description of the Variables*

The date of the first irrigation ranged from 29 May to 20 July, with a median of 21 June (Figure 5). With a range of 52 days, the date of first irrigation had high heterogeneity. Most dates of first irrigation ranged from 17–28 June (25/34).

Of the 24 explanatory variables selected, those for structural and material factors were mainly farm characteristics (5) and agronomic practices (5), followed by irrigation practices (4) and farmer's characteristics (3). In comparison, the variables for psychological factors were mainly assistance (4), followed by reactivity (2), deliberation (2) and risk preferences (1) (Table 4).

**Figure 5.** Distribution of the dates of first irrigation for interviewed farmers.

**Table 4.** Classification, responses and descriptions of the 24 explanatory variables.



#### **Table 4.** *Cont.*
