Farmers' adoption of agriculture green production technologies: perceived value or policy-driven?

Abstract

Understanding the underlying reasons for farmers' AGPT adoption in the context of resource environment tightening and agricultural carbon reduction has become crucial to promote agriculture sustainable development. This paper uses multiple ordered regression model and probit model to test the impact of farmers' perceived value on their adoption of agricultural green production technologies (AGPT) by using the first-hand data from 613 rice farmers in Hunan, and explores the effect and mechanism of policy subsidies and market incentives on the adoption of AGPT, and investigates the differences in the impact of perceived value on the adoption of green technologies in different production stages. The results showed that, (1)farmers' AGPT adoption is significantly affected by their perceived value, in which perceived benefits significantly promotes farmers' AGPT adoption, while the perceived risks is the opposite. But farmers' AGPT adoption in different production stages is influenced by different perceived value. The adoption of soil testing and fertilization technology (STFT) in the pre-production stage is significantly influenced by the perceived benefits; adoption of green pest control technology (GPCT) in the mid-production stage is significantly influenced by both the perceived benefits and the perceived risks; and adoption of straw return technology (SRT) in the post-production stage is significantly influenced by the perceived risks. (2) Farmers' adoption of green technologies can be encouraged by policy subsidies, which also have the moderating effect of decreasing the negative influence of perceived risks on farmers' adoption behaviour. (3) Further analysis reveals that market incentives can compensate for the limitations of policy subsidies, greatly promote farmers' adoption of AGPT, and regulate farmers' perceived risks and perceived benefits to encourage them to use green technologies. Consequently, the Government should actively publicize and organize training on agriculture green technologies, and provide diversified subsidy programmes for different green technologies. And governments should also improve the quality certification system and the market price mechanism for agricultural products, so as to help farmers adopting green technologies to achieve an increase in their income.