The Impact of Rural Population Aging on Farmers’ Cleaner Production Behavior: Evidence from Five Provinces of the North China Plain

Jing Liu,Zetian Fu,Shichun Du

doi:10.3390/su132112199

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to examine the impact of rural population aging on farmers’ cleaner production behavior through the intervening effects of three aspects (learning capacity, factor substitution and behavior imitation). The data used in this article were collected from a questionnaire survey of 916 farmers in the main grain producing provinces of the North China Plain. First, confirmatory factor analysis was carried out, and then data were analyzed through structural equation modeling using the bootstrap methodology in AMOS 24. The findings indicate that rural population aging inhibits farmers’ cleaner production behavior through learning capacity. In contrast, rural population aging promotes farmers’ cleaner production behavior through factor substitution and behavior imitation. From the perspective of both challenges and opportunities, this article investigates the impact mechanism and comprehensive effect of rural population aging on farmers’ cleaner production behavior, so as to explore new ways to promote cleaner agricultural production under the background of an accelerated aging the of rural labor force and provide reference for the formulation of relevant policies.

Highlights

China has relied on an agricultural production mode for the highintensity development of its resources as well as a high concentration of production factors, resulting in environmental pollution and low resource utilization efficiency, which restricts the sustainable development of agriculture and the rural economy [1]
The average variance extraction (AVE) (0.607, 0.564, 0.592, 0.635 and 0.651) of all potential variables are greater than 0.5, which shows that potential variables can explain more than half of the measured variables
We find learning capacity, factor substitution and behavior imitation have positive effects on farmers’ cleaner production behavior

Summary

Introduction

China has relied on an agricultural production mode for the highintensity development of its resources as well as a high concentration of production factors, resulting in environmental pollution and low resource utilization efficiency, which restricts the sustainable development of agriculture and the rural economy [1]. The pesticide utilization rate is only 35%, 10–20 percentage points lower than that in developed countries [2]. China’s agricultural water consumption accounts for more than 60% of national economic water consumption, and agricultural irrigation water efficiency is only 75% of developed countries [3]. The old agricultural development model has seriously affected the sustainable development of China’s agriculture [5]

Objectives

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Results

Conclusion