The Influence Of Environmental Regulation On Farmers’ Substitution Behavior And Degree Of Fertilizer Reduction

Under the background of dual constraints of resources and environment,China’s agricultural production development needs to solve the dilemma of "pollution first,treatment later".Among them,adopting chemical fertilizer reduction substitution technology is an effective way to achieve environmental protection,cost saving and efficiency increasing.In recent years,the government has issued a series of environmental regulation policies on agricultural green production to restrain,encourage and guide farmers’ green production.However,there are still a large number of excessive fertilization behaviors in the application of chemical fertilizer by farmers,and the adoption degree of chemical fertilizer reduction substitution technology is not high.In this context,under the guidance of cognitive theory,externality theory and farmer’s behavior theory,this paper explores the interaction mechanism among environmental regulation,farmer’s cognition and fertilizer reduction substitution behavior and degree;Secondly,the micro-survey data of 336 rice farmers in Feixi County were used,factor analysis,binary Pobit model,Ordered Probit model and mediating effect model were used to explore the direct influence of environmental regulation on farmers’ fertilizer reduction substitution behavior and degree.The indirect influence of environmental regulation on the behavior and degree of fertilizer reduction substitution through farmers’ cognition.Thus put forward relevant countermeasures and suggestions.The main conclusions of this paper are as follows:(1)More than half of the sample farmers have adopted the substitution behavior of fertilizer reduction,but the degree of substitution is at a low level.(2)The overall level of environmental regulations in the sample areas is not high,only the mean value of constrained environmental regulations is higher than the average level,the overall level of farmers’ cognition is high,and the mean value of ecological cognition and benefit cognition are higher than the average level.(3)Environmental regulation is an important factor affecting farmers’ substitution behavior and degree of chemical fertilizer reduction.To be specific,both incentive environmental regulation and guiding environmental regulation promote farmers’ substitution behavior and degree of chemical fertilizer reduction.(4)Farmers’ cognition plays a mediating role between environmental regulation and fertilizer reduction substitution behavior and degree,Specifically,in the influence of incentive and guiding environmental regulations on farmers’ chemical fertilizer reduction substitution behavior,benefit cognition and technology cognition play a part of the intermediary effect;In the influence of guided environmental regulation on the degree of substitution of farmers’ fertilizer reduction,ecological cognition and benefit cognition plays a part of intermediary effect.(5)In the analysis of the influence of control variables on farmers’ fertilizer reduction substitution behavior and degree,Years of education,arable land fertility,arable land area and risk preference had significant positive effects on farmers’ fertilizer reduction substitution behavior,total household income has a significant negative effect on it,Gender and arable land fertility had a significant positive effect on the degree of fertilizer reduction replacement.Based on this,it is suggested that new standards be introduced according to local conditions,we will implement targeted subsidies and multi-channel subsidies,pay attention to publicity and education,and upgrade the concept of environmental protection,so as to strengthen the constraint,incentive and guiding effect of environmental regulations.At the same time,differentiated strategies should be formulated based on the characteristics of farmers,and a joint intervention mechanism of multiple actors should be established to accelerate the transformation of agricultural production process to green.