Abstract
Understanding the extent of pesticide overuse and what drives rice farmers to overuse pesticide in agricultural production theoretically and empirically is imperative to increase farmers’ income, promote agricultural transformation and agricultural sustainable development. In this paper, we examined the phenomenon and pattern of pesticides overuse based on the data collected from 861 rice farmers in Jiangsu and Anhui, two provinces in China. By applying the Cobb-Douglas production function (C-D production function) and the damage control model, we estimated the marginal productivity of pesticides. We also adopted the Binary Probit model to further explore factors leading to overuse of pesticide among farmers. Our findings suggested that the marginal productivity of pesticides is close to zero, indicating that there is an excessive use of pesticides in the surveyed areas. According to the Binary Probit model, we also discovered that female farmers, farmers with knowledge about pesticide toxicity, pesticide residue and farmers who hold the view that massive use of pesticide is inimical to the environment, and farmers who participate in pesticide training organized by the government, are more likely to overuse pesticide. On the contrary, experienced farmers have a lower chance of overusing pesticides. Possible explanations to the above findings may be that applying pesticides in accordance with the instructions causes overusing and farmers who are loss-averse, in order to avoid the risk of income loss that may be caused by disease and insect pests, and keep its own income stable, will still increase the amount of pesticide application. It also indicates that farmers are insensitive to increased pesticide overuse.
Highlights
In the agricultural sector, pesticide is commonly used to prevent, destroy, repel or mitigate pests, weeds, insect infestation, and diseases
The theory of decision making suggests that individual behavior is affected by individual characteristics, e.g., social-demographics, governmental and psychological factors [41]; based on this, our study develops 10 independent variables for analysis. These include characteristics of individual farmers such as their gender [42], education level [19], farming years [43], planting size [44], other economic features such as portion of household income generating from farming [45], government and policy factors such as the participation in pesticide use training organized by governments [46]; knowledge about types of prohibited pesticides [47], views towards frequent and massive use of pesticides on generating pesticide residue [29], view towards massive use of pesticides which in turn damage the surrounding environment [48]
This study examines the pesticide overuse phenomenon and pattern based on empirical data collecting from 861 rice production farmers in two provinces in China
Summary
Pesticide is commonly used to prevent, destroy, repel or mitigate pests, weeds, insect infestation, and diseases. It plays a significant role in enhancing crop productivity, ensuring food stability, and reducing farmers’ income loss due to pest diseases. Pesticide overuse is a common and long-term phenomenon in developing countries. China is the largest developing country and is the largest manufacturer and consumer of pesticides in the world, while pesticide overuse is common in the region [2]. The average amount of chemical pesticides per unit area in China is 2.5 to 5 times higher than developed countries [3]. In other words, holding productivity unchanged, a decrease in the use of pesticides can increase farmers’ income
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