Are independent agricultural advisors more oriented towards recommending reduced pesticide use than supplier-affiliated advisors?

This article therefore analyses whether agricultural advisors representing companies that do not sell pesticides (independent advisors) are more likely to recommend reduced pesticide use than agricultural advisors who represent companies with an economic interest in selling pesticides (supplier-affiliated advisors). However, we would not necessarily expect a crude relationship between economic incentive and higher pesticide recommendations. After all, advisors have to justify their recommendations to their customers, the farmers. It is possible that farmers who contract with supplier-affiliated advisors also demand different types of advice or that advisors within these companies construe pesticide problems differently from independent advisors. We therefore also examine the effect of potential intervening variables such as advisors' perceptions of farmer demand for different types of advice, advisors’ weightings of different purposes connected to pesticide use, and their perceptions of the environmental risk of using pesticides