Risk Perception And Technology Cognition On Farmers’ Behavior Of Preventing And Controlling Heavy Metal Pollution In Cropland

All grains comes from soil,only with soil can there be corp.The fundamental guarantee of national food security lies in soil and cropland.Under the background of insufficient quantity and low quality of cultivated land in China,how to store grain on the land has become a key issue to ensure the quantity and quality safety of grain in China.According to the survey of the 2021 China Ecological Environment Status Bulletin,the main pollutants affecting the soil environmental quality of cropland in China are heavy metals.The exceeding rate of heavy metal pollutants in cropland soil in China reached19.4%.Heavy metal pollution in cropland directly leads to problems such as grain production reduction and food safety,which seriously threatens China’s food security.In recent years,China has invested a large amount of funds,focusing on the fallow of heavy metals,restoration,pilot adjustment of crop planting structure,and the safe use of polluted cropland.However,the practice in the pilot area shows that although strong subsidies have been carried out to reduce the cost of farmers’ technology adoption and encourage farmers to adopt farmland heavy metal pollution prevention and control technology,it is still difficult to mobilize the enthusiasm of farmers to adopt technology adoption,and failure to effectively solve the problem of heavy metal pollution and heavy metal in grain.Farmers,as the direct subject of the prevention and control of heavy metal pollution in cropland,improving the technology adoption of farms is not only the key to improve the quality of cropland,but also the practical need of realize food storage in the land strategy.Existing studies generally believe that the farmers lack the motivation to actively adopt under the cost constraint,and the government should lead the governance to bear the corresponding cost.But China’s farmland heavy metal pollution area is large,the treatment cycle is long,to the fiscal expenditure to control pollution is unsustainable in the long term.Therefore,the long-term effective prevention and control incentive strategy starts from the behavior logic of farmers,fully considering the endogenous impetus and external constraints of farmers in implementing the prevention and control of heavy metal pollution in cropland,and formulate technology promotion and subsidy plan,and use financial funds to leverage farmers to realize the independent adoption of technology.This study takes farmers’ heavy metal pollution prevention behavior as the research object,from the perspective of environmental risk perception and technology cognition conduct the research.Technology diffusion theory,rational behavior theory,planned behavior theory,protective motivation theory and expected utility theory are taken as the theoretical basis of the research.Firstly,the bibliometric method and "source-pathway-receptor" model are used in this research to scientifically evaluate the degree of heavy metal pollution and risk level in cropland in China,which provides reference for the comprehensive strategy of cadmium pollution in cropland;Second,along the logic of "cognition--willingness--behavior--confirmation",analyze the endogenous motivation and external constraints of farmers behaviour of prevention and control of heavy metal pollution in cropland.This study used data from a survey of cadmium pollution control behaviors of rice farmers in Hunan and Jiangxi provinces.We construct a structural equation model of the formation mechanism of farmers’ willingness to adopt heavy metal pollution technology to clarify the subjective and objective constraints of farmers’ technology adoption.And the conditional value assessment method was used to analyze farmers’ willingness to pay for heavy metal pollution control on farmland and to clarify the gap between farmers’ willingness to pay and the cost of technology.The IV-Probit model and IV-Tobit model are used to analyze the factors affecting farmers’ willingness to pay,so as to provide reference for reasonable subsidy design,so as to realize the independent adoption of technology;Finally,the endogenous transformation model is used to study the subjective motivation of farmers and the economic effect of technology adoption,so as to clarify the incentive direction of farmers’ independent technology adoption.On the basis of the above analysis,the incentives and problems at the level of education and training,subsidies,and laws and regulations in the current prevention and control system of heavy metal pollution in cropland in China are sorted out,and the corresponding policy incentives and technology promotion strategies are improved based on the logic of farmers’ technology adoption.The main conclusions of this study are summarized as follows:(1)Heavy metal contamination of arable land in China is serious,and heavy metal contamination of arable land is an important risk factor affecting food security.The comprehensive pollution index of heavy metal in all provinces of China has exceeded the warning value,and the risk of heavy metal pollutants entering the food system is huge;Among all the pollutants,the cadmium pollution is the most serious,and the heavy metal pollution in the northwest region and coastal areas is serious;The areas with high risk of heavy metal pollution in cropland are mainly distributed in the areas with relatively developed industry;The area with high industrial source risk is the eastern coast,the area with high agricultural source risk is north China and northeast Plain,and the area with high path risk is the coastal area;From the perspective of the spatial distribution of heavy metal pollution degree and pollution risk level,there is a large area of overlap with the main grain producing areas in China,and the heavy metal pollution in cropland poses an obvious threat to China’s food security.(2)The prevention and control of heavy metal pollution in cropland is a "cognitive-behavior" process,which influenced by subjective and objective factors.The prevention and control behavior of heavy metal pollution in farmland follows the process of "cognition-willingness-behavior-confirmation",the formation of the adoption willingness and payment willingness of heavy metal pollution prevention technology are not only constrained by objective factors such as endowment,cost-benefit and ability level,but also driven by subjective factors such as subjective environmental risk perception,technology cognition and subjective norms.(3)Driven by the maximization of farmers’ expected utility,farmers independently adopt heavy metal pollution prevention technology in cropland.The analysis based on profit maximization clarifies the possibility that farmers do not adopt it independently,but the survey of the prevention and control of cadmium pollution in rice farming found that farmers’ willingness to adopt was higher than the general level,while farmers were willing to pay 31.36 yuan /(annual mu).Meanwhile,despite the inability to increase the income,there were the surveyed farmers still 37% who actively adopted at least one technology in the survey.Since the excessive standard of heavy metals in rice is an uncertain risk event,farmers have a "deterministic effect",when adopting the decision of heavy metal pollution prevention and control technology in cropland,which will reduce the uncertainty by maximizing the expected utility,thus having the behavior of adopting heavy metal pollution prevention and control technology independently.(4)The level of farmers’ environmental risk perception of heavy metal pollution and the awareness of heavy metal prevention technology is low,which limits farmers implement the prevention and control behavior of heavy metal pollution in cropland.The theoretical derivation of farmers ’expected utility and empirical test found that the risk perception of heavy metal pollution and the technology cognition of farmers can significantly promote farmers’ willingness,willingness to pay and technology adoption of prevent and control heavy metal pollution.But the survey shows that the risk perception and prevention technology cognition of heavy metal pollution in cropland are at the general level,which hinders the prevention and control behavior of heavy metal pollution in cropland.By improving farmers’ risk perception,especially the perception of reaction ability,loss perception,cause perception and prevention technology cognition,can significantly promote farmers’ prevention and control of heavy metal pollution in cropland.(5)Farmers which targeting at rice sales and have characteristics of large-scale and specialized planting are the main force in the prevention and control of cadmium pollution in cropland.This study found that the willingness,willingness to pay and behavior of farmers’ prevention and control behavior are highly in large planting scale farmers,export rice arable land and transferred arable land.At the same time,environmental risk perception and technology cognition have a stronger impact in above types of farmers.It shows that incentive the behavior of farmland heavy metal pollution prevention and control should focus on the farmers which targeting at rice sales and have characteristics of large-scale and specialized planting.(6)Information intervention promotes the prevention and control of heavy metal pollution in farmers by improving their environmental risk perception and technology cognition.The test of the intervention mechanism found that after the intervention of displaying information on heavy metal content,pollution hazards,and control technologies on farmland,farmers’ environmental risk perception and technology cognition had a significantly higher impact on their willingness to pay and technology adoption behavior for heavy metal pollution control on farmland.The information intervention increased the subjective probability of farmers producing rice with excessive Cd by influencing the risk perception,and also increased the expected profit by increasing the technology perception and thus the expected utility of the adopted technology,which ultimately increased the probability of farmers’ farmland heavy metal pollution control behavior.(7)The use of heavy metal pollution control technologies on cropland can promote increased rice production,but not increased farm income,and reasonable subsidies is needed for technology adoption.The adoption of cropland cadmium pollution control technology by rice farmers significantly improved the rice yield per mu,but failed to play a significant effect of increasing rice planting income.Further tests revealed that the marginal cost of technology adoption by farmers is higher than their marginal benefit,resulting in insignificant income increase,and a certain technology cost subsidy for farmers is needed.However,traditional direct farmer subsidies not only do not promote farmers’ active technology adoption,but also increase farmers’ dependence on subsidies and reduce the probability of farmers’ autonomous technology adoption,which requires a scientifically designed subsidy mechanism.This article has the following innovations:The research perspective is innovative.The previous study analyzed the economic constraints and objective factors influencing the adoption of heavy metal pollution control technologies on farmland from the basic assumption that farmers are "rational economic agents" and maximize their profits.This paper takes farmers’ expected utility maximization as the basic assumption from farmers’ "non-pure rationality",takes farmers’ heavy metal pollution prevention and control as the research object,analyzes the logic of farmers’ behavior in using relevant technologies to control heavy metal pollution in farmland from the perspective of farmers’ "cognitive-behavioral" as a whole,clarifies the internal motivation and external constraints of farmers’ technology adoption,explores effective incentives,and explores the possibility of farmers’ autonomous technology adoption.The research content is innovative.The study focused on both the objective risk of heavy metal contamination of cropland and the subjective risk perception of farmers at the micro level.The level of risk of heavy metal pollution from farming in China is scientifically assessed at the macro level,and the spatial and temporal distribution characteristics of risk sources and risks are analyzed.The logical relationship between farmers’ subjective risk perceptions and their willingness to control heavy metal pollution on farmland,control behavior and willingness to pay for technology was clarified at the micro level.Data acquisition is innovative.In this paper,we use a combination of macro and micro data to analyze the level of heavy metal pollution risk in arable land and farmers’ environmental risk perception in China.Since heavy metal pollution of cropland is confidential,this study use bibliometric methods to obtain measurement data from existing literature,and also use web crawler technology to obtain data on the operation and violations of heavy metal pollution enterprises.Combined with statistical data on wind speed,water flow,livestock and poultry manure,fertilizer and pesticide usage,it reflects the current situation of heavy metal pollution in China and enriches the channels for data acquisition.