| The development of the eco-agricultural model could bring multiple economic,ecological,and social benefits.However,the breakthroughs faced by agricultural technology extension agencies and the inadequate development of market-oriented eco-agricultural technology supply have led to a slow and ineffective spread of the eco-agricultural model.In fact,neighboring farmers learn from each other,and obey the similar technical operation norms.And sharing mutual production elements as well as improving social services gathered by farmer groups.Therefore,the formed group interaction among farmers have an important impact on the adoption costs and benefits of individual farmers,which means neighboring farmers play an significant role in diffusion of eco-agricultural model.At present,the existing studies have focused on investigating the adoption behavior of farmers from the profit maximization hypothesis of traditional farmer behavior theory.And the mechanism and direction of the influence of group behavior and results on individual farmers have not yet reached a consistent conclusion.Then in practice,what is the status of farmers’ adoption behavior,technical efficiency and benefits of eco-agricultural model?Can neighboring effect be used to effectively increase farmers’ enthusiasm for adoption of eco-agricultural models,and its adoption technical efficiency and adoption benefits?What are the specific mechanisms and directions of impact?The exploration of the above issues helps us to understand the external driving forces of farmers’ adoption behavior of eco-agricultural model and technology adjustment behavior,clarify the direction of agricultural technology promotion and adjustment,which has positive practical significance for promoting the extension of eco-agricultural models and improving the operating efficiency and benefits of farmers.Based on this,this paper takes co-farming of rice and crayfish in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River as the research object,and based on the bounded rationality theory,farmer behavior theory,innovation diffusion theory,neighboring effect related theory,and group interaction models,to construct the theoretical model of neighboring effect on farmers’ adoption behavior utility.In this way,an analytical framework for the impact of neighboring effect on farmer’s adoption behavior,adoption technical efficiency,and adoption benefits is established.After summarizing the production and industrial development characteristics,as well as diffusion difficulties of co-farming of rice and crayfish,empirical analysis was carried out based on 980 field survey data.First,the binary Probit model is used to test the influencing magnitude and mechanism of neighboring effect on farmer’s adoption behavior of co-farming of rice and crayfish.Besides,the instrumental variable method and spatial econometric model are used to test the endogeneity and robustness of the regression results,Second,we use three-stage DEA method to measure the technical efficiency of co-farming households.Based on this,the Tobit model is used to test the identification and impact mechanism of neighboring effect on co-farming households’ technical efficiency.The endogeneity and robustness of the regression results are also tested using the instrumental variable method and the spatial measurement model.Third,the multiple linear regression model is used to test the identification and influencing mechanism of neighboring effect on co-farming households’average output value and average input cost.To test the endogeneity and robustness of the regression results,we also use instrumental variable method and spatial econometric model.Meanwhile,this article also has an overall grasp of other factors that affect farmer’s adoption of co-farming of rice and crayfish.Through the above research work,this study draws the following conclusions.(1)The co-farming of rice and crayfish is a capital-technology-intensive and labor-intensive production method,of which agricultural products produced are characterized by frequent sales and uncertainties.Its development is conducive to stabilizing food production,and increasing farmers’ economic returns,as well as improving the agricultural environment and resource,and enhancing agricultural products quality.Therefore,it is a typical ecological agricultural model with both socio-economic and ecological benefits.In recent years,the industry scale of the co-farming of rice and crayfish has gradually expanded,but there are certain regional differences in the scale and speed of development in the main production areas.The industrial structure of co-farming of rice and crayfish has also gradually improved,which is mainly driven by the development of tertiary industries.However,its industrial development has also faced with issues of imperfect industrial chain structure and weak brand effect.Socio-economic and ecological benefits as it achieved,there are still many difficult problems in technology diffusion and technology application of co-farming of rice and crayfish.More specifically,a set of standardized,repeatable,and expandable technical model are hard to form because of imperfect technical system for planting and breeding,which has hindered the increase of the technology diffusion rate.Except that,peasant households have limited sources of effective information technology,leading to blind adoption by farmers and inadequate mastering of key technologies,and excessive input of factors causing environmental pollution.Moreover,the irrational behavior of farmers technology application is outstanding,resulting in low overall benefits,which hinders the sustainable development of co-farming of rice and crayfish,as well as farmers’ income improvement.(2)Farmers have a high enthusiasm for adopting the co-farming of rice and crayfish model.The survey results show that 70.9%of the sample farmers adopt co-farming of rice and crayfish.And neighboring effect significantly positively affects farmers’ adoption behavior of co-farming of rice and crayfish.Neighboring effect has the greatest impact effect on farmer’s adoption behavior of co-farming of rice and crayfish through social learning,which is 0.635,accounting for about 20.10%of the overall impact effect;followed by technology network effect and social norms,which is 0.237 and 0.133,respectively.And accounting for approximately 7.50%and 4.22%of the overall impact effect,respectively.The results indicates that neighboring effect mainly affects farmers’ adoption of co-farming of rice and crayfish through social learning.In the empirical analysis benchmark model,under the condition of controlling correlating effect and exogenous effect,the coefficient of neighboring effect on farmer’ adoption behavior is 0.265.Based on the instrumental estimation methods,the social multiplier effects of neighboring farmers’ adoption behaviors are 1.69 and 1.79,respectively.(3 The adoption technical efficiency of the sample co-farming households is low and varies greatly among co-farming households.More specifically,under the existing production conditions and input levels,if the technical inefficiency can be eliminated,the output value of co-farming households can still be improved by 71.9%.The neighboring effect significantly influences the technical efficiency of co-farming households which mainly through social learning,In the empirical analysis,under the condition of controlling correlating effect and exogenous effect,the coefficient of the neighboring effect on technical efficiency of co-farming households in the benchmark model is 0.627.Based on instrumental variable method,the social multiplier effect of neighboring co-farming households’ technical efficiency is 11.11.(4)The co-farming of rice and crayfish presents high input,high output and high profit and differs greatly among households’ individuals and areas.The statistical analysis results show that the average output value of the sample co-farming households is 3533.65 yuan and the average input cost is 2523.66 yuan.And neighboring effect significantly positively affects the average output value of co-fanning households,which is mainly through social learning and technological network effects.The difference between this two mechanism is-0.041,which indicates the technology network effect is significantly higher than that of social learning.And neighboring effect significantly affects the average input cost of co-farming households.However,neighboring effect reduces the average input cost of co-farming households through social learning.In the empirical analysis,after considering correlating effect and exogenous effect,the coefficient of neighboring effect on the average output value of co-farming households is 0.531 and on the average input cost is 0.663.Based on the instrumental variable method,the social multiplier effects of co-farming households’ average output value and average input cost are 3,95 and 8.77,respectively.Overall,the possible innovations of this research can be reflected in the following aspects:(1)From the research perspective,the farmers’ group behaviors and results are introduced into the utility model of farmers’ adoption behavior,which means paying attention to group interaction effect on individual farmers,as well as taking endogenous problems into account.The traditional farmer’s behavior theory assumes that economically rational individuals with stable preferences maximize their utility,and ignores that human behavior is affected by groups with certain social connections.Moreover,few studies have considered the endogenous relationship between group and individual behavior outcomes to examine the influence of groups on individuals.In practice,there is mutual influence and simultaneity of farmers’ adoption behavior and technological adjustment behavior,as well as a certain spatial correlation.Therefore,this study not only considers group interaction effect on individual farmers’ behavior,but also considers the endogenous impact and spatial correlation between farmers’ behavior.(2)From the research content,this research has deepened the study of influencing mechanism of neighboring effect on individuals behaviors and outcomes.The existing researches focused on identification of neighboring effect,or testing the significance of a certain mechanism of neighboring effect,and the comparative analysis of the direction and magnitude of different influencing mechanisms of neighboring effect remains to be discussed.However,different mechanism has uncertain direction which may lead to different adjustment direction of agricultural technology diffusion.In practice,farmers’behavior may affected by neighboring effect from different direction.This study draws on the model of group interaction and examines the direction and magnitude of neighboring effect on farmers’ adoption behavior,technical efficiency and adoption benefits through social learning,social norms,and technological network effects.(3)From the research methods,this study has expanded the existing research methods of farmers’ adoption behavior,adoption technical efficiency and adoption benefits.There have been studies based on multiple linear regression,Probit,Tobit and other measurement methods to examine farmers’ technology adoption behavior and results,but few studies have considered the spatial correlation between adoption behavior and results among farmers.Less consideration of this spatial correlation will lead to biases in research results.This study not only uses the instrumental variable method to test the endogenous robustness of the influencing factors of farmers’ adoption behavior,adoption technical efficiency and adoption benefits,but also considers the impact of the spatial correlation between farmers on the technology adoption behavior and results of farmers to improve the estimation results accuracy. |
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