Research on the Relationship between Agricultural Insurance Participation and Chemical Input in Grain Production

Abstract

As an important agricultural policy, agricultural insurance will affect farmers’ production input, such as fertilizers and pesticides. Its development needs to consider the environmental impact and adapt to the needs of sustainable development. In addition, farmers’ chemical input behavior during the agricultural production process may also affect their agricultural insurance participation behavior. Based on data from a survey of 1318 farmers in the Shandong, Liaoning, Jiangxi, and Sichuan provinces of China, this paper established a simultaneous equations model to explore the interaction between farmers’ agricultural insurance participation behavior and chemical input in the grain production process. The results show a mutual causality between the decision to obtain insurance and chemical input in grain production. Farmers who input fewer chemical fertilizers and more pesticides per mu are more inclined to purchase agricultural insurance. Agricultural insurance participation significantly increases the input of chemical fertilizers and reduces the input of pesticides in the grain-production process. On this basis, the following policy recommendations are proposed: firstly, we should pay attention to the increasing role of agricultural insurance in agricultural sustainable development and further improve the agricultural insurance policy system; secondly, we should innovate and develop “green”-oriented agricultural insurance policies to accelerate the high-quality development of agricultural insurance; third, we should increase publicity and guidance to encourage more farmers to engage in green production.