The Impact of Rural Industrial Integration on Agricultural Green Productivity Based on the Contract Choice Perspective of Farmers

Abstract

Promoting farmers’ participation in rural industrial integration and driving farmers’ agricultural production with cooperatives and agribusinesses are conducive to realizing cost saving, efficiency, and green production and guaranteeing food security and sustainable agricultural development. Based on the microsurvey data of 1039 grain farmers in Henan Province, China in 2022, this paper examined the impact of contractual choices of farmers’ participation in rural industrial integration on agricultural green productivity while analyzing the mechanism of action by using OLS regression, a causal mediation analysis of instrumental variables, propensity score matching, and two-stage least squares (2SLS). The study found that: (1) farmers’ participation in a contract, driven by cooperatives or agribusinesses to carry out agricultural production, is conducive to improving their agricultural green productivity, but the effect of each main body to drive farmers varies; (2) farmers’ participation in a contract, through cooperatives or agribusinesses to obtain all kinds of agricultural production services—such as agricultural machinery services, agricultural supply services, and technical guidance services—improves the use of agricultural machinery, the standardization of chemical fertilizers, pesticides, and other agricultural materials’ use, increases technical guidance, and improves agricultural green productivity. The findings of this paper suggest policy and practical implications for safeguarding food security and promoting sustainable agriculture, as well as enriching research on agricultural productivity.