Research On The Behavior And Effect Of Farmers' Reduction Of Chemical Fertilizer

Chemical fertilizer is an important input element in agricultural production,and has made outstanding contributions to the development of China's agricultural economy in promoting the increase of crop yields and ensuring food security.However,problems of agricultural non-point source pollution and environmental quality decline,such as soil compaction,water eutrophication,air quality acidification,which are caused by long-term excessive and inefficient application of chemical fertilizer are very common,and the contradiction between agricultural development and environmental protection is becoming increasingly prominent.In order to prevent the deterioration of the ecological environment and strengthen the prevention and control of environmental pollution,it is imperative to reduce the input of chemical fertilizer and other material elements.As the main body of agricultural production activities and the implementer of management decisions,farmers'production behavior has an important impact on the prevention and control of non-point source pollution.The key to reduce the amount of fertilizer application is to study the mechanism of farmers'behavior in reducing fertilizer application.Based on the analysis of the current situation and potential of chemical fertilizer application,by taking apple growers in Shandong Province as an example,this paper studies the behavior and effect of farmers'reducing fertilizer application and clarifies the incentive mechanism for farmers to reduce chemical fertilizers by using the models of factor decomposition,stochastic frontier,structural equation,bivariate probit,binary logit,two-stage IV probit,endogenous transformation and game.At the same time,combined with the theoretical analysis and empirical results,the paper also puts forward incentive policy suggestions for farmers to reduce fertilizer application,which can provide reference for the formulation of relevant policies.The main research conclusions are as follows:From 1990 to 2018,the total amount and intensity of chemical fertilizer application in China show an overall upward trend,and present a downward trend for the first time in 2016,but there is still a large gap with developed countries.In terms of time,the change trend of fertilizer application intensity in China is similar to the total amount of fertilizer application;from the perspective of spatial distribution,the overall application intensity of chemical fertilizer in China is relatively large,basically above the level of moderate chemical fertilizer application.And there are significant differences between different regions,which are mainly manifested in the greater application intensity in Southern China,Huang Huai Hai region and some provinces(Jiangsu Province,Shaanxi Province);in term of fertilizer application intensity of different crops,except soybeans,other crops far exceed the internationally recognized safety limit of chemical fertilizer application.At the same time,according to the median 463kg/hm~2 of the average application intensity of 12 kinds of crops,high fertilizer consumption crops and low fertilizer consumption crops are defined.In addition,the decomposition of the influencing factors of the fertilizer application intensity shows that the planting structure is biased towards fruits and vegetables,and the low efficiency of chemical fertilizers together promotes the increase of fertilizer application intensity.Therefore,the focus of reducing chemical application should be on fruits and vegetable and other crops.Further research on the technical efficiency of fertilizer input and the potential of fertilizer reduction for apples and other high-fat crops is crucial to the solution of the problem of non-point source pollution of chemical fertilizers in my country.According to the calculation of the stochastic frontier production function,the technical efficiency of apple production is 0.8645,but the technical efficiency of fertilizer input is only 0.3873.It means that while maintaining the same output and other input conditions,it can also save about61.27%of the fertilizer application.In other words,more than half of the fertilizer input in current apple production is inefficient,and reducing the amount of fertilizer input will not have a negative impact on apple production.And there are significant differences between different major provinces,but the overall level has improved.The optimal application rate for apple production is 21.35 kg/mu,and the degree of excessive application is 63.16%,which is much higher than that of food crops.Therefore,there is a greater potential of chemical fertilizer reduction.Both the technical efficiency of chemical fertilizer input and the degree of excessive application of chemical fertilizers indicate that there is a potential of chemical fertilizer reduction in apple production,which is much higher than that of food crops,and it is necessary to strengthen the management of fertilizer application in crop planting.Therefore,it is imperative to reduce the amount and increase the efficiency of chemical fertilizer in apple production.The behavior logic of farmers'adoption of water-fertilizer integration technology follows the basic path of“cognition-willness-behavior”.The behavior attitude,subjective norms and perceptual behavior control of farmers'directly affect their adoption willingness,and behavior attitude has a greater impact on their adoption willingness.The path coefficient is 0.394;the path coefficient of subjective norms affecting the adoption willingness is 0.247;the perceptual behavior control not only has a positive effect on the adoption willingness,but also directly affects the adoption behavior.The path coefficients of the influence on the adoption willingness and the adoption behavior are 0.480 and 0.119 respectively,and the total standardization effect on adoption behavior is greater than the sum of the effects of behavior attitude and subjective norms.For the fertilization technology,farmer'adoption willingness has a mediating effect between their cognition and behavior,which is a key point to promote the smooth realization of farmers'adoption behavior.In addition,there are significant correlations between behavior attitudes and subjective norms,behavior attitudes and perceptual behavior control.Only subjective norms and perceptual behavior control have little influence and fail to reach the expected significant level.Farmers'adoption of fertilization technology has basically achieved the goal of saving fertilizer and increasing income.After adopting the fertilization technology,the sample farmers can save 11.79%-20.98%of the fertilizer application,and increase the income of agricultural products by 8.15%-9.07%,and there are significant differences in the fertilizer-saving and income-increasing effects of the water-fertilizer integrated technology of households with different scales.For large-scale households that adopt the fertilization technology,the intensity of fertilizer reduction is significantly higher than that of small-scale farmers.At the same time,the adoption of fertilization technology can only has a significant effect on increasing the income of large-scale households of agricultural products.In the actual survey,47.83%of the households use organic fertilizers to replace chemical fertilizers.However,in 52.17%of farmers'fertilization behavior,the phenomenon that they did not reduce the application of chemical fertilizer after applying organic fertilizer,which was contrary to the conventional relationship between organic fertilizer and chemical fertilizer.From the impact of risk perception and social trust on organic fertilizer substitution,it can be seen that risk perception has a significant negative impact on farmers'organic fertilizer substitution behavior,social trust has a significant positive impact on it,and social trust has a positive regulatory role between farmers'risk perception and organic fertilizer substitution behavior,which can alleviate the negative impact of risk perception on organic fertilizer substitution behavior.In addition,the role of risk perception and social trust in different groups of farmers varies greatly.Compared with the planting scale,the difference in risk perception among farmers with different total household income and education level is more significant.Among them,the organic fertilizer substitution behavior of low-income and low-educated farmers is more susceptible to risk perception and social trust;for high-income,large-scale,and high-educated farmers,institutional trust can not only reduce risk perception,but also benefit organic fertilizer.The occurrence of substitution behavior.The substitution behavior of farmers'organic fertilizer is related to the amount of chemical fertilizer and the income of agricultural products.On the whole,farmers have basically achieved the goal of saving fertilizer and increasing income by replacing organic fertilizer.After the replacement of organic fertilizers,the sample farmers can save 7.91%-10.55%of fertilizer application,but only increase the income of agricultural products by 2.11%-2.27%.It can be seen that the effect of reducing the application of chemical fertilizer is better than the effect of increasing the income of agricultural products.The improvement in earnings is modest.The stakeholders in the process of reducing chemical fertilizers for farmers are mainly farmers and the government.Through the game analysis of the interests of farmers and the government,the paper mainly shows that the government should compensate farmers according to their reasonable needs,reduce the additional cost of farmers'fertilizer reduction,and improve the effectiveness of farmers'active reduction of chemical fertilizers under the leadership of the government.In the analysis of incentive mechanism based on government compensation,in order to avoid adverse selection behavior,the government should design different compensation standards according to different types of farmers.For low-efficiency farmers,the compensation standard provided by the government should be less than the marginal effort output value of the farmers,so as to reduce the high-efficiency farmers to imitate the low-efficiency farmers probability;for high-efficiency farmers,the compensation standard designed by the government should meet the excess compensation paid to farmers to encourage farmers to pay a higher degree of effort.This is the best result that both parties can achieve under the condition of information asymmetry.It can ensure that the government saves supervision costs while encouraging farmers to make more efforts in reducing fertilizer applications.In order to avoid moral hazard behaviors,it is necessary to design a compensation standard that enables farmers to obtain negative utility when they do not work hard,but when they do not make efforts to change to hard work,they will obtain positive utility added value,which can encourage farmers to reduce fertilizer.The optimal level of effort is spent in the action to maximize social benefits,so that the government and farmers form a win-win situation.Based on the analysis of the adoption behavior of farmers'chemical fertilizer reduction technology and the analysis of incentive mechanism based on government compensation,the incentive policy recommendations for farmers'chemical fertilizer reduction are proposed.From the perspective of policy recommendations to promote the adoption of water and fertilizer integration technology,it is necessary to build a social service mechanism for fertilization technology;standardize the control of the adoption of fertilization technology;create land scale conditions that are conducive to the promotion and application of fertilization technology;rational and effective use"Boost"mechanism.From the perspective of policy recommendations to promote organic fertilizers instead of chemical fertilizers,a diversified promotion mechanism that reduces the degree of risk perception should be implemented;a social recognition mechanism that is conducive to organic fertilizers to replace chemical fertilizers should be created;government public services and effective supply should be enhanced;implementation should meet the heterogeneity Differentiated incentive policies for farmers'needs;perfect the agricultural product quality supervision system under the market circulation mechanism.From the perspective of policy recommendations to achieve internal compensation for externalities,it is necessary to build a mechanism for expressing interest in response to compensation;establish a multi-channel special fund for ecological compensation for fertilizer reduction;and build a heterogeneous dynamic compensation standard.