Well-managed, agriculturally used peatlands play an important role for the storage of greenhouse gases. A new agri-environmental measure (AEM) was established in the European Common Agricultural Policy to incentivise a land management, which conserves climate functionality of peatlands through high water levels. To investigate which factors influence the willingness of farmers to participate in this measure, we carried out an empirical study applying a discrete choice experiment (DCE). The aim was to identify optimal contract designs that can also reduce transaction costs for farmers. Besides monetary compensation, measure characteristics such as contract length, assured purchase of the cut grass, support in the cooperation with neighbouring farmers, and administrative efforts are considered as decisive attributes. Results show that the average willingness to adopt the measure is set at 522 /ha*a. Moreover, we find that factors such as supporting cooperation among farmers and regional value chain approaches have a statistically significant and large positive influence on the adoption decision. Based on our results, the uptake and success of the new measure could therefore be increased by a more appropriate tailoring towards different farm types and their needs. Adjustments would increase the climate protection potential of the proposed measure. Acknowledgement : This research was financially supported by the European Comission under the funding scheme Research and Innovation Action (RIA) under grant no. 633838 and conducted in the H2020 Project PROVIDE - PROVIding smart DElivery of public goods by EU agriculture and forestry.