Exploring the Influence Mechanism of Farmers’ Organic Fertilizer Application Behaviors Based on the Normative Activation Theory

Zhaoxia Guo,Ge Wang,Gangqiao Yang,Jinhua Xie

doi:10.3390/land10111111

Abstract

This paper establishes an analysis framework to investigate the effect of the awareness of consequences and the ascription of responsibility on farmers’ organic fertilizer application behaviors (OFABs). Using questionnaire survey data from Hubei Province, one of the main grain-producing areas in China, this study employed both mediating effects and moderating effect analytical methods to analyze the influencing mechanism of the awareness of consequences and ascription of responsibility on farmers’ OFABs. The results show that, firstly, the awareness of consequences and ascription of responsibility have a significant positive impact on farmers’ OFABs. The improvement in farmers’ awareness of consequences and ascription of responsibility can effectively promote the utilization of organic fertilizers for enhanced ecological production. Secondly, the awareness of consequences and ascription of responsibility have a significant positive impact on farmers’ OFABs through individual farmers’ personal norms. Increasing farmers’ awareness of consequences and ascription of responsibility firstly stimulates their personal norms; then, personal norms have a positive impact on farmers’ OFABs. Thirdly, farmers’ social norms can positively regulate the relationship between personal norms and their OFABs. The higher the social norms of farmers, the more their social norms can have a positive regulating effect on their OFABs. Therefore, in the future, it will be necessary to vigorously promote farmers’ awareness of consequences and ascription of responsibility, in order to enhance farmers’ social norms, and to improve the level of farmers’ social norms, in order to greatly promote farmers’ engagement in OFABs. This will ultimately better promote rural ecological environmental protection and ecological civilization construction.

Highlights

IntroductionWith the rapid socio-economic growth and the increase in the population of China, to guarantee food safety for nearly 20% of the global population, China utilizes the world’s largest amount of chemical fertilizers (almost 30% of the global total) [1]
Increasing the use of chemical fertilizers is beneficial to food production, but their use leads to soil degradation, agricultural carbon emissions, and water pollution [2,3,4,5,6]
By combing through the existing literature, this paper found that the existing research perspectives still need to be expanded in the following aspects: First, existing studies analyze farmers’ organic fertilizer application behaviors (OFABs) from different perspectives, they rarely analyze them from the perspective of social psychology theory

Summary

Introduction

With the rapid socio-economic growth and the increase in the population of China, to guarantee food safety for nearly 20% of the global population, China utilizes the world’s largest amount of chemical fertilizers (almost 30% of the global total) [1]. Increasing the use of chemical fertilizers is beneficial to food production, but their use leads to soil degradation, agricultural carbon emissions, and water pollution [2,3,4,5,6]. Due to the saturation of chemical fertilizers in the soil, the utilization efficiency is declining [7,8]. Some researchers allege that this represents an overuse of chemical fertilizers [9] and lead to a

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