Cooperative membership, service provision, and the adoption of green control techniques: Evidence from China

Abstract

The excessive use of chemical pesticides threatens human health and food safety. The wide application of green control techniques (GCTs) is helping improve the quality and safety of agricultural products. This work examined whether agricultural cooperatives can be used as an institutional arrangement to promote the adoption of GCTs by farmers, using cross-sectional data from a survey of farmers in Shandong Province, China. An endogenous switching probit model that accounted for selection bias was employed in the analysis. The empirical results revealed that cooperative membership significantly improved the probability of farmers adopting GCTs. Access to production services, technical training, and credit services provided by cooperatives significantly increased the probability of adopting GCTs. However, marketing services had no statistically significant impact on the GCT adoption probability. These findings highlight the positive role of contemporary agricultural cooperatives in promoting green production. The government should improve the cooperative service system, strengthen the supervision of cooperative production and operation, and support more farmers to join agricultural cooperatives that practice and enforce cleaner production methods.