The Environmental Protection Behavior Of Farm Households Providing Safe Agricultural Product

Chinese agricultural nonpoint source pollution is faced a grim situation. It not onlyaffects the efficiency of agricultural production, restricts the increase of farm householdincome, but also brings food safety issues, thereafter reduces consumer welfare. Under thisbackground, the Chinese government vigorously promotes farmers to produce safeagricultural products in order to mitigate the negative effects occurred in agriculturalproduction. However, the current reaches are primarily focus on the consumer welfare effects.There is still lack of the study on environmental effects of safe products production. Basically,any environmental issues are the results of human environmental behavior, thus the aim ofthis paper is to study the environmental effects of safe products production based on farmhousehold’s environmental behavior.The main purpose of this paper is to study the agricultural environmental protectionbehavior of safe product producers, to analyze the impact factors on agro-ecologicalprotection behavior of safe product producers, to reveal the decision framework onagricultural environmental protection behavior, thus to provide several policy suggestions onpromoting farm household’s environmental protection behavior. To do this, according toprevious literature reviews, the paper builds a conceptual model of agricultural ecologicalenvironment protection behavior involving sociology, behavioral science, economics andmanagement science employing innovative-Diffusion decision theory, planned behaviortheory and conditions of valuation theory. This three-stage timing model, which arecontinuous, suggest that agro-ecological environmental protection decision-makingexperience cognitive (environmental protection awareness)-Decision (EnvironmentalProtection willingness)-Adoption (agro-ecological environment protection measuresadopted). The research analyze the factors influencing the environmental protectionawareness, environmental protection willingness, the agro-ecological environment protectionmeasures adoption of safe products producers, as well as the relationships among the threeaspects by employing multiple linear regression model, Probit model, Tobit model andmultivariate statistical analysis taking321pollution-free leek growers as sample in JiangsuProvince in China. The paper clarifies the operational mechanism, and indicates policy suggestions on promoting farm household’s environmental protection behavior.The results of the paper show a lower environmental protection awareness of farmhouseholds, the imbalances of cognitive structure, and the significant regional differencesaccording to the research on environmental awareness of safe agricultural product producers.The findings also indicate that farmers have higher environmental protection awareness inNorthern and Southern part of Jiangsu Province, and have lower environmental protectionawareness in the middle part of Jiangsu province. Moreover, age and schools education havesignificantly but different directional impact on farmers’ environmental awareness. Age hassignificantly negative impact on improving farmer’s environmental protection awareness,whereas the educational attainment of farm householders has positive influence in improvingfarmer’s environmental protection awareness.In the study of farmers’ safe agri-food producer environmental protection willingness,we found that farmers had strong willingness to protect environment and to pay for it.Farmer’s age, cadre identity, size, safety agricultural income, environmental consciousness,environmental protection attitude, subjective norm, perceived behavioral control, governmenttechnical services and regional factors affect farmer’s willingness to protect environment andpay for it. The older the farmers are, the less willing to pay to protect the environment. Cadresidentity had positive effect on farmers’ environmental protection. If farmers were had been arural cadres, they would be willing to pay more for the environmental protection; Attitude andbehavior variables of farmers had significant positive influence on agricultural ecologicalenvironmental protection willingness. The results proved that planned behavior theory can beused to explain farmers’ agricultural ecological environmental protection behavior indeveloping countries; frequency of technical service provided by government had significantpositive influence on farmers’ willingness to pay for environmental protection. Regionalfactors also had a significant positive effect on farmers’ willingness to pay, specially, farmersin north Jiangsu province is willing to pay more money for environmental protection.In the study of farmers’ agriculture ecological environment protection measures adoptedbehavior, we found that agriculture ecological environment protection measures adopted byfarmers achieved to "tend to be more qualified". Among the four dimensions of environmentalprotection measures, the scores of pesticide using behavior and agricultural materialspackaging waste management behavior were very high, while the score of the farmlandnutrient management was lowest. Age, gender, level of education, social status, family labor,family scale, plantation age, economic factors and strength of the government managementinfluenced farmers’ agricultural ecological environmental protection measures adopted.Farmers who are under the age of40, male, suffered more than junior high school education, with rural elite status, family labor scale for more than five acres, plant life shorter, canmotivate farmers to make more conducive to adopt the environmental protection measures.In the study of the relationships among environmental consciousness, environmentalprotection willingness and agricultural ecological environment protection measures adoptedbehavior, we found that there was an intermediary effect between environmentalconsciousness and the agricultural ecological environment protection measures adoptedbehavior. The results revealed the decision-making mechanism of safe agriculturalenvironmental protection:(1) three-stage decision-making mechanism. The farmer’senvironmental protection decisions go through three stages, such as environmentalconsciousness, environmental protection desire and agriculture ecological environmentprotection measures adopted behavior;(2) two-stage decision-making mechanism. Thefarmer’s environmental protection decisions go through environmental consciousness andagriculture ecological environment protection measures adopted behavior in two stages.Environmental awareness of environmental protection decision mechanism shows thatfarmers’ environmental consciousness can not only influence the adoption of environmentalprotection measures directly, but also influence the adoption of environmental protectionmeasures through environmental protection willingness indirectly. Thus, it is very importantto improve farmers’ environmental awareness level.Finally, according to the research results, we put forward relevant policy suggestions.First, encourage the publicity and education efforts on improving the level of the farmer’senvironmental awareness, environmental protection willingness and environmental protectionmeasures adopted behavior. Secondly, give full play to the extremely role of the elite group inrural areas. Thirdly, optimize the sales channels of safety agricultural products. Fourthly,promote the development of using organic fertilizer in rural markets. Fifthly, put into effect ofenvironmental protection policies in areas with higher environmental protection awareness.and finally, strengthen the monitoring and service function of safety agricultural productproduction.