How does social learning influence Chinese farmers’ safe pesticide use behavior? An analysis based on a moderated mediation effect

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Green production in agriculture is a critical project for achieving the United Nations 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Using pesticide safety as an entry point, this paper explores safe agricultural production and proposes initiatives from the origin source, which are essential to address multiple SDGs, including food security, health, and the environment. Using research data encompassing 612 peasant households in Sichuan province, China, this paper examines the mechanisms of social learning on farmers' safe pesticide use behavior employing exploratory factor analysis, Oprobit model, and Bootstrap method. The results show that social learning has significantly positive effects on farmers' safe pesticide use behavior, with each additional point of social learning contributing to a 3.411% increase in the chance of taking 6 safe pesticide use behavior. The effect sizes of different social learning styles were in the order of role demonstration, neighborhood communication, and participation in training, but proactive learning by consulting did not work significantly. Furthermore, perceived value has a positive mediation effect in social learning to impact farmers' safe pesticide use behavior, accounting for 34.53% of mediation effect. Finally, the market conditions can positively moderate the mediation effect of perceived value on farmers' safe pesticide use behavior, i.e., the better the accessibility to green production materials, marking and pricing stabilization, the stronger the effect of perceived value on safe pesticide use behavior. However, information access doesn't work that way. Therefore, in the future, the government must encourage farmers to participate in social learning and improve their perceived value, as well as play a macro-control role and fulfill market conditions.