Despite widespread adoption of conservation practices by farmers in the Cannonsville watershed, part of the New York City water supply system, there is considerable resistance to riparian buffer practices of the Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program (CREP). Traditional approaches to promoting CREP adoption, based on the adoption-diffusion model, were not effective in promoting CREP. We surveyed farmers in the Cannonsville watershed to evaluate factors affecting CREP adoption. Many variables commonly tied to practice adoption, including farm structure and farmer sociodemographic traits, were poorly correlated with the attitudes of Cannonsville farmers toward CREP. Attitudes toward land costs and farmer resentment toward New York [...]