Study On Farmers' Environmentally Friendly Production Behavior From The Perspective Scale Heterogeneity

Agricultural ecological environment is the basis for the development of agriculture and rural economy.Protecting the agricultural ecological environment is to protect agricultural productivity.A good ecological environment is conducive to the sustainable development of agriculture and the whole society.However,the contradiction between China's agricultural and rural economic development and the agricultural ecological environment is more prominent,and the pressure on the agricultural ecological environment is increasing day by day.In the past 10 years,the use of chemical fertilizers in China has increased from 51.0783 million tons in 2007 to 58.5941 million tons in 2017.China has become the country with the most use of global fertilizers.The large increase in chemical fertilizer application poses a real threat to China's water safety,soil safety,food safety and human health.Under the background of tight resource and environmental constraints,how to achieve green development and sustainable use of resources,and to embark on a road of agricultural modernization with high output,product safety,resource conservation and environmental friendliness,has become a realistic problem that China needs to solve under the new situation.In 2015,the former Ministry of Agriculture formulated the Zero Growth Action Plan for Quantitative Use of Fertilizers by 2020 to promote the zero-growth action of chemical fertilizers and pesticides,and clearly promote the application of environmentally friendly fertilizers such as soil-measuring formula fertilizers and organic fertilizers.Farmers are the managers and decision makers of agricultural production and management,which determine the mode and structure of fertilization.The environmentally friendly fertilization behavior is an important guarantee for the sustainable development of agriculture and rural areas in China.In fact,the differentiation of farmers is an inevitable outcome of economic and social development.With the advancement of industrialization and urbanization,the scale of agricultural operations has gradually expanded,and large-scale business households have developed rapidly.Despite this,the pattern of small-scale decentralized management of agricultural production cannot be completely changed in China.Small-scale farmers will exist in a long-term and large-scale existence.Small-scale farmers and large-scale business households have become the basic components of China's agricultural ecological management.Farmers of different scales of operation will have inevitable differences in their attitudes and behaviors towards environmentally friendly production behaviors due to the heterogeneity of their resource endowments.Studying the use of environmentally friendly fertilizers and their driving mechanisms for heterogeneous farmer households will provide micro evidence for the promotion of environmentally friendly fertilizers in China,and provide decision-making reference for the government to improve relevant policies.In view of this,on the basis of referring to relevant theories and empirical research results at home and abroad,this study discusses the following three key issues from an empirical perspective:(1)Is there any difference in the behaviors of large-scale farmers and small farmers using environmentally friendly fertilizers,and what factors are involved in this difference?(2)What factors determine large-scale farmers and small farmers to adopt environmentally friendly fertilizer production?(3)From the perspective of scale heterogeneity,is there any difference in the factors that affect the adoption of environmentally friendly fertilizers by large and small farmers,and what is the internal mechanism of the difference?Through the study of the above three issues,the following main conclusions have been drawn:(1)The factors that affect the use of environmentally friendly fertilizers by heterogeneous farmers are different.For small farmers,age,household income,education level,technical training and risk preference are important factors that affect the use of soil testing formula fertilizers by small farmers.Age,the total number of household labor,the number of non-agricultural labor force,aquaculture income,and excessive fertilization's cognition of soil impact are important impacts on the adoption of organic fertilizer by small farmers.(2)For large-scale farmers,age,the quality of agricultural land,the total number of household labor,household income,government subsidies,education level,technical training,risk preference,and excessive fertilization's cognition of soil impact are the important factors that affect large-scale farmers to adopt formula fertilizers based on soil testing.The total number of household labor force,the number of non-agricultural labor force,aquaculture income,technical training,risk preference and excessive fertilization's cognition of soil impact are important factors that affect the adoption of organic fertilizer by large-scale farmers.(3)The factors that affect small farmers and large-scale farmers to adopt soil testing formula fertilizer are different from each other.The common point is that the two types of farmers' adoption of soil testing formula fertilizer are all affected by the factors of age,household income,education level,technical training and risk preference.The difference is that large-scale farmers are also affected by the cognitive factors of agricultural land quality,the total number of household labor force,government subsidies and excessive fertilization's cognition of soil impact.(4)The factors that affect the adoption of organic fertilizer by small farmers and large-scale farmers are different from each other.The common point is that the adoption of organic fertilizer by the two types of farmers is influenced by the the total number of household labor force,the number of non-agricultural labor force,aquaculture income and the cognitive factors of excessive fertilization's cognition of soil impact.The difference is that small farmers are also influenced by age,education level,and large-scale farmers are also influenced by technical training and risk preference.