Study On The Farmer’s Production Behavior Based On The Quality And Safety Of Agricultural Products

Agricultural production is the first hurdle to ensure the quality and safety of agricultural products. As producer of agricultural products, farmers have the motivation to maximize economic interests with existing resource constraints. When the market mechanism is not perfect, and government regulation is not in place, it is prone to have moral and lawful hazard, thus bring harm to the quality of agricultural safety. At the same time, as agricultural consumers, farmers also have the motive to improve the quality and safety of agricultural products. Therefore, farmers’ behavior is not only targeted but also guided. At present, most agricultural incidents were caused by the irrational behavior of production in the production process, therefore, guiding and constraining farmers’ safety behavior are effective measures to safeguard the quality and safety of agricultural products.Based on the sample households survey data of six provinces in the eastern part of China in 2011, this paper analyzes the factors of farmers’ production behavior and its relationship with the quality of agricultural products according to the internal control cognitive factors and external influence factors such as market conditions and government regulation. Firstly, we establishes the research theoretical framework of this article based on summarizing the literature and related research theories about the relationship between farmers’ production behavior and quality and safety of agricultural production; then it systematically elaborates research design ideas of this paper and gave the described analysis resort in order to understand the status of agricultural production and farmers cognitive level; again, systematically analyze the factors affecting farmers’ decision- making, and to establish a theoretical model; then empirically analyze the impact of factors such as internal control cognitive factors, market environment, government regulation on farmers’ production behavior; then, based on analyzing farmers’ cognitive behavioral evolution trend, empirically analyze the key factors affecting the level of knowledge of farmers; Finally, based on the above theoretical and empirical analysis, it proposes policy recommendations to adjust farmers’ producing behavior and protest the quality and safety of agricultural products. The main conclusions of this article are as follows:(1) Agricultural production is a long duration and many aspects involves production process that from cognitive to production planning and then to production management and finally to the storage and sales, so every aspect is closely related to the quality of agricultural products. Firstly, the level of knowledge and the attitude on agricultural production are the underlying determinants of farmers whether to adopt the safety production technologies. Farmers’ producing decisions are made based on the cognitive level at that time, and the cognitive level of farmers are formed and constantly adjusted according to the former production process; agricultural production planning includes the allocation of capital, land and labors, they distributes agricultural production in order to maximize the effectiveness of family farmers in the existing resource constraints; management is an important part of agricultural production and it is also the most directed and critical joints that affecting the quality and safety of agricultural, inappropriate behavior will increase the risk of quality and safety of agricultural in different degrees, but management is also the key aspects to guide and regulate household’s behavior.(2) There is a big difference between farmers in agricultural production, use of agricultural inputs and their cognitive level, therefore the risk of the quality and safety of agricultural products is different between different farmers. It is found that family income, social services, farmers’ cognitive level and certification of agricultural cultivation have significant impact on farmers’ behavior to produce safety products, and the regression coefficients are 0.0628(1%), 0.1470(1%), 0.1496(1 %) and 0.1119(5%). That means farmers that with higher level of family income, better social service system, higher cognitive level of farmers’ specification, and the farmers where have certified product produced are more inclined to take safety measures.(3) Farmers awareness is a constantly updated and constantly changing process, cognitive changes guided household behavior change and the same time the results will further affect the behavior of households’ cognition. It is found that age, education level and other characteristics of the factors farmers themselves did not have a significant impact on their cognitive level, but external factors are important factors affecting farmers cognitive level, including social services, whether to plant certified agricultural products, whether had government subsidies and whether in big city, the regression coefficients are 0.6138(1%), 0.5841(5%), 0.6875(5%)and 1.2234(1%).Combining these findings, we propose some policy recommendations as follows: improving farmers’ cognitive level about safety product and strengthening farmer production practices by using modern means of information, increasing agricultural skills training, and improving agricultural production and management; improving consumer’s awareness level by strengthening information disclosure to guide farmers production behavior; strengthening agricultural inputs and agricultural market regulation and at the same time improving the social service system; strengthening the government’s supervision and support for the quality and safety agricultural products.