Why is China's Blue Revolution so "Blue"? The determinants of conservation tillage in China

Abstract

In response to problems associated with traditional tillage, over the past two decades, conservation agriculture (CA) has gradually emerged, and its adoption is becoming so widespread and benefits so great that it is being called the technology behind a new Blue Revolution. Somewhat surprisingly, given China's relatively strong track record in produc- ing and spreading new cropping technologies, there is little information in the literature on the adoption of CA in China. The overall goal of this paper is to increase our understanding of the adoption of CA technology (or more precisely, the reduced tillage/residue retention part of the CA technology package, conservation tillage (CT)) and the constraints that exist to adoption in northern China. The objectives of this study include (1) obtaining valid data and providing a profile of CT adoption, (2) documenting both the extent and path of the adoption, and (3) measuring the determinants of CT adoption and trying to understand why it has emerged in some villages (and on some farms) but not in others. The data used in this paper come from our field survey of 292 households from four provinces in northern China. Based on the field survey, we have classified CT technology into Full CT technology (or Real CT technology—that is, those households that adopt both reduced tillage and residue retention together) and Partial CT technology (or Nominal CT technology—that is, those households that only adopt one of the components of Full CT technology, either reduced tillage or residue retention). Our results show that the adoption rates of CT technology (either for Full or Partial CT technology) are still low. Especially in the case of Full CT, adoption is almost zero. Despite relatively low rates of adoption, there are factors that are found to systematically encourage CT adoption. Our econometric results show that policies that ban burning crop residues, extension work that promotes CT technology, off-farm labor opportunities (which raise the opportunity cost of labor), and large farm size lead to higher adoption of CT technology.