Study On The Impact Of Aging Labor Force On Farmers’ Green Production Behavior

Since the reform and opening up,China’s agriculture has developed rapidly and made remarkable achievements worldwide.With less than 8% of the world’s arable land resources,it has fed nearly 20% of the world’s population and achieved a historic transformation from hunger to sustenance to prosperity.However,this achievement has come at the cost of massive inputs of agricultural chemicals,the impact of which on agricultural resources and the environment cannot be ignored.The massive input of chemicals has caused surface pollution,as well as a decline in the quality of arable land,loss of agricultural production capacity,unsafe product quality and a series of other negative problems,posing a serious threat to the quality development of agriculture.The comprehensive promotion of green agricultural development is an important way to improve the economic efficiency of agricultural production and break the resource and environmental constraints.Farmers are the front-line subjects of agricultural production,and are also the direct adopters and beneficiaries of green agricultural production methods.Therefore,special attention should be paid to the main position of farmers in the green development of agriculture,and their adoption of green production behaviour should be guided.The ageing trend of China’s agricultural labour force is obvious,with the departure of young and middle-aged labourers from agricultural production and the decline in fertility rates leading to the ageing of the agricultural labour force being widely mentioned and focused on in academic circles.Based on human capital theory,farmer behaviour theory,technology diffusion theory,value perception theory and induced technological innovation theory,internal factors(value perception)and external factors(cooperative organisation embedding)are introduced to investigate the mechanism of labour ageing on farmers’ green production behaviour.This thesis uses research data collected from rice farmers in Anhui Province to investigate the effect of ageing labour on farmers’ green production behaviour using a Binary Logit model,and uses stepwise regression to test whether value perceptions mediate the effect of ageing labour on farmers’ green production behaviour.The study also uses heterogeneity analysis and robustness tests to enrich and verify the scientific validity of the findings.The main findings of this study are as follows:(1)there is a moderating effect of labour force ageing on farmers’ adoption of green production behaviour,with older farmers being significantly less likely than younger farmers to apply organic fertiliser and adopt green pest control;(2)labour force ageing leads to biased perceptions of the value of green production behaviour among farmers,with older farmers having significantly lower positive perceptions of the economic and social value of green production behaviour compared to younger farmers.The positive perception of economic and social values of green production behaviour is significantly lower among older farmers than among younger farmers,and the value perception has a significant mediating effect in the process of ageing affecting two types of green production behaviour: organic fertilizer application and green pest control;(3)the embedding of co-operative organisations has a significant facilitating effect on farmers’ green production behaviour,and can significantly alleviate the constraining effect of ageing labour on farmers’ organic fertilizer application.The study shows that the ageing of the labour force is not conducive to the green transformation of agriculture in China,and government departments need to pay attention to and actively respond to the ageing trend of the agricultural labour force,and take enhancing farmers’ value perceptions and accelerating the cultivation and growth of farmers’ co-operative organisations as important policy references to promote green agricultural development.Based on the above research findings,the following recommendations are put forward:(1)encourage young adults to return to their hometowns for employment and enhance rural human capital;(2)adhere to the strategy of promoting quality in agriculture and actively promote green production technology;(3)improve farmers’ green value perception and establish the concept of green development;(4)improve farmers’ organisation and accelerate the cultivation and growth of farmers’ co-operatives(5)build an agricultural production exchange platform to promote mutual help and assistance.