Study On The Effect Of Labor Constraint And Value Expectation On Farmers’ Organic Fertilizer Application Behavior

For a long time,the excessive application of chemical fertilizer has brought many negative effects,such as decreasing the quality of cultivated land,worsening environmental pollution,and no guarantee of food safety,etc.Replacing chemical fertilizer with organic fertilizer is an effective approach to solve the problem of chemical fertilizer’s overuse,and to realize the green development of agriculture.Although the country has been vigorously promoting organic fertilizer for five years,the technical adoption rate of organic fertilizer is not high,especially the technical promotion rate of small farmers has been at a low level.Therefore,the research on the decision of small farmers’ organic fertilizer adoption has important academic and practical significance,which is conducive to enriching the related research of farmers’ technology adoption behavior,and providing relevant basis for the promotion of organic fertilizer technology.Organic fertilizer technology is not only a typical cross-period green production technology,but also a labor-intensive technology with a large demand for labor force.The intertemporal technical attribute determines the current period of investment and the intertemporal nature of returns.Labor intensity makes farmers’ decision of applying organic fertilizer affected by the labor constraints.Income transition makes value expectation play an important role in organic fertilizer decision-making.Therefore,it is necessary to include labor constraint and value expectation into the study under the same analytical framework.So,how do labor constraint and value expectation influence farmers’ behavior of applying organic fertilizers? Which is more important,labor constraint or value expectation?Answering these questions in a scientific and systematic way is useful to better understand farmers’ organic fertilizer application logic,speed up the promotion of organic fertilizer and achieve fertilizer reduction.This paper uses the survey data of 1016 rural households in Henan and Hubei provinces for empirical research.Firstly,based on the field survey data,the current situation of labor mobility and the adoption of organic fertilizer technology by farmers are systematically grasped.Secondly,based on the technical attributes of organic fertilizer technology,labor constraint and value expectation are included in the same analytical framework to explore the logic of farmers’ organic fertilizer adoption behavior.Finally,the combined effects of labor constraint and value expectations on farmers’ organic fertilizer adoption behavior are explored,focusing on comparing the magnitude of the effects of labor constraint and value expectation on farmers’ organic fertilizer adoption behavior.This paper further analyzes the effects of labor constraints and value expectation in different groups of farmers.The main findings of the study are as follows:First,labor constraint significantly hinders farmers from applying organic fertilizers.Farmers’ concurrent employment limits the time of effective agricultural labor force into agricultural production.Compared to farmers with low labor constraint,farmers with higher labor constraint are approximately 10.4% more likely to reduce their organic fertilizer adoption behavior.Second,value expectation significantly promotes farmers’ adoption of organic fertilizers.Farmers’ expectation of organic fertilizer’s economic,ecological,and social values can all significantly contribute to farmers’ adoption of organic fertilizer,among which the ecological value expectation has the greatest promotion effect.Third,the influence of labor force on the application of organic fertilizer is larger than that of the value expectation on the application of organic fertilizer.Among the same individual farmers,when facing the dual effect of labor constraint and value expectation,the effect of labor constraint is greater.Changing farmer’s labor constraint can lead to more significant changes in the probability of organic fertilizer adoption.Fourth,the effects of labor constraint and value expectation on farmers’ organic fertilizer adoption behavior vary across farmer groups.The impact of labor force constraint is greater than that of value expectation for farmers with low annual household income,low frequency of social interaction,and no adoption of social services.The impact of value expectation is greater than that of labor force constraint for farmers with high annual household income,high frequency of social interaction,and adoption of social services.On the basis of the above findings,this paper proposes some suggestions and implications:(1)Promote the formation of a substitution system of labor factors.On the one hand,cultivate and expand public welfare production cooperative organizations,and on the other hand,market-oriented socialized services are encouraged to create a good market environment for the development of local socialized service business.At the same time,we should raise the income level of rural households and activate the shared vitality of private labor mobility;(2)Raise the value expectation of organic fertilizer adoption by farmers.Pay attention to farmers’ multi-dimensional value demands,strengthen positive publicity of organic fertilizer,optimize publicity content,enrich publicity forms and enhance publicity interaction;(3)Policies and measures should be formulated in accordance with the actual conditions of peasants.In the process of inter-temporal green technology promotion,we should clarify that smallholder farmers have psychological characteristics that are more short-term focused.Then we should focus on solving the current obstacles faced by farmers.Meanwhile for farmers with sufficient endowments,it is also important to promote their value expectation,so that farmers are inclined to show willingness to implement in order to obtain inter-term benefits,thus transforming endowment resources into a basis for action.