Environmental Regulation,Social Norm And Scale Breeding Farmers’ Cleaner Production Behaviors

In recent years,while scaled and intensive livestock and poultry breeding in China has been increasingly developing,daunting resource and environmental challenges have emerged.It is necessary to reduce resource input,standardize the production process and reuse resources so as to promote cleaner production of livestock and poultry breeding,which is significant to accelerate the green transformation of modern animal husbandry and to ensure the safety of animal products.Against the increasingly tightening national policies and enhanced public environmental awareness,more attention should be paid to the roles of environmental regulation and social norm in livestock and poultry breeding.On the one hand,government’s various regulation measures could influence farmers’ production behaviors.On the other hand,as a soft constraint,social norm could exert influences to scaled breeding farmers’ production willingness and behaviors.In reality,environmental regulation and social norm have co-existed in rural areas.Disentangling and analyzing their different effects on scaled breeding farmers’ cleaner production are important to provide references for the policy design of green transformation of livestock and poultry breeding industry.However,previous studies have mainly focused on the impact of one aspect of environmental regulation or of social norm on scaled breeding farmers’ behaviors,and rare of them have clarified these distinct effects on farmers’ cleaner production intensity and on household economic condition and personal happiness,thus resulting in insufficient research conclusions.So,what kind of roles do environmental regulation and social norm play in scaled breeding farmers’ cleaner production willingness and decision-makings? What influences do they exert on household’s economic condition and on their psychologically happiness? When degrees of environmental regulation and social norm vary,are there differences in household economic and psychologically happiness effects of farmers’ cleaner production behaviors? Addressing these questions isconducive to understanding the drivers of farmers’ cleaner production behaviors,thus providing sufficient basis for the implementing policies to promote rural cleaner production of livestock and poultry breeding.Due to complexity in cleaner production process and according to the principle of limited objectives,this study focuses on the manure utilization in livestock and poultry breeding by taking scaled pig breeding as an example.Based on the systematic review of previous research,this study uses unique survey data of scaled pig breeding farmers in rural Hubei Province to comprehensively analyze the development and actual situations of cleaner production in the sample areas.The indicators of environmental regulation and social norm are constructed and measured with principal component analysis used.Employing different mathematical models,this study explores the impacts of environmental regulation and social norm on scaled pig breeding farmers’ willingness,adoption behaviors and adoption intensity of cleaner production technologies,as well as on their annual household income per capita and on their happiness.There are four parts in this study.The first part,including Chapters 1 and 2,introduces the research background and content as well as basic research theories.With Chapters 3 and 4 included,the second part describes the history and status quo of cleaner production of scaled pig breeding,constructs and measures the indicators of environmental regulation and of social norm.Consisting of Chapters 5,6 and 7,the third part uses survey data of scaled pig breeding farmers in rural Hubei Province to analyze the impacts of environmental regulation and social norm on scaled pig breeding farmers’ willingness,adoption behaviors and adoption intensity of cleaner production technologies,as well as on the annual household income per capita and on their happiness.Also,the different impacts between different groups are compared.Chapter 8,the final part,proposes policy suggestions in terms of conclusions.The main conclusions are as follows.(1)Farmers account for large proportions who are willing to adopt four types of cleaner production technologies.Most respondents mainly return manure to farmland directly or reuse manure as biogas,while rare reuse manure as fertilizer,feeder or culture medium,or even sell manure.The adoption intensity of cleaner production technologies needs to be further strengthened.In the sample areas,relevant government policies and technology promotion methods are insufficient.The efforts to promote cleaner production technologies are not enough.Farmers have low awareness of cleaner production and their actual participation is limited.Social constraints on cleaner production are lack.(2)Average levels of environmental regulation and social norm are all relatively high in the sample areas.Specific to indicators,the level of supervisory regulation is higher than that of incentive regulation,and the level of social responsibility norm is higher than those of individual moral norm,public recognition norm and group behavior norm.As for those who are willing to reuse manure as biogas,fertilizer,feeder or adopt integrated crop-animal farming,their environmental regulation level and social norm level are all much higher.The higher the adoption intensity of cleaner production technologies is,the higher,the levels of supervisory regulation,individual moral norm,social responsibility norm and public recognition norm.(3)Incentive regulation and social responsibility norm all positively influence farmers’ willingness to reuse manure as biogas,fertilizer or feeder and adopt integrated crop-animal farming.Supervisory regulation only positively influences farmers’ willingness to reuse manure as feeder.Individual moral norm positively influences farmers’ willingness to reuse manure as biogas,fertilizer and adopt integrated crop-animal farming.Public recognition norm and group behavior norm all positively affect farmers’ willingness to reuse manure as fertilizer or feeder,and farmers’ willingness to adopt integrated crop-animal farming could be improved by public recognition norm.Heterogeneity analyses reveal that environmental regulation indicators and social normindicators have different impacts on different farmers’ willingness to adopt these four types of cleaner production technologies.(4)There are correlations among farmers’ choices in seven types of manure treatments.Different choices are distinctively affected by environmental regulation indicators and social norm indicators.Farmers’ adoption intensity of cleaner production technologies is positively influenced by supervisory regulation,incentive regulation and group behavior norm.Heterogeneity analyses show that supervisory regulation only influences farmers’ adoption intensity with low educational level,individual moral norm only influences farmers’ adoption intensity with high risk perceptions,group behavior norm only influences farmers’ adoption intensity with medium or large breeding scales,and that incentive regulation exerts greater influence on farmers’ adoption intensity with small breeding scale.(5)Environmental regulation and social norm do not significantly affect annual household income per capita,but they all significantly and positively influence farmers’ happiness.With environmental regulation and social norm into account,if farmers treating manure highly clean choose to treat manure with low clean level,their annual household income per capita and happiness will decrease.Otherwise,the reverse.Heterogeneity analyses show that the lower the degrees of environmental regulation or social norm are,the greater,the annual household income per capita and happiness effects of farmers’ cleaner production behaviors.Thus,the government should strengthen the cleaner production propaganda to improve farmers’ awareness,and perfect the promotion mechanism to improve their clean production ability.Appropriate incentive and supervisory regulation policies should be formulated and implemented,thus effectively improving their economic condition and happiness obtained from the adoption of cleaner production technologies.In addition,public opinion supervision and cleaner production behavior demonstration platforms should be built to give full play to the soft constraints of other people on scaled breedingfarmers’ cleaner production behaviors.Also,measures should be taken to cultivate farmers’ sense of social responsibility and self-morality,so that social responsibility norm and individual moral norm could effectively help to motivate farmers to adopt cleaner production technologies.