Adoption of Multiple Sustainable Manure Treatment Technologies by Pig Farmers in Rural China: A Case Study of Poyang Lake Region

Abstract

The adoption of sustainable manure treatment technologies (SMTTs) in livestock production helps to reduce agricultural contamination. As such, understanding what determines farmers’ adoption of SMTTs is an essential prerequisite for the administrative handling of livestock pollution. Applying a multivariate probit model on a cross-sectional data set of 686 pig farmers in Poyang Lake Region in China, this study discovered that two key factors influencing farmers’ decisions to adopt multiple SMTTs are off-farm labor and environmental awareness. In other words, households with a higher share of off-farm labor are less likely to adopt SMTTs. Farmers with higher environmental awareness are more likely to adopt SMTTs. The results also revealed that because of the inappropriateness of government subsidy and insufficient technical training, the impact of Chinese government subsidy on the adoption of biogas technology is negligible, but the subsidy on composting greatly helps to promote the adoption of composting technology. We also found a substitution effect and complementary effects between different SMTTs. These findings can improve policymakers’ understanding of farmers’ joint adoption decisions. It also helps policymakers to optimize subsidy strategies to encourage farmers’ adoption of SMTTs in rural China.

A Long-Term Analysis of Spatiotemporal Change and Driving Factors on Poyang Lake during 1987-2019

“…Poyang Lake is an essential hydrological regulation area in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River, with a variety of land cover types and abundant natural resources in the lake area [20,21]. Therefore, monitoring the surface water body area of Poyang Lake is of great ecological and hydrological importance in determining the inundation time and annual inundation of the marshland [22,23].…”

Insights about the Choice of Pig Manure Processing System in Three Italian Regions: Piemonte, Friuli Venezia Giulia, and Veneto

“…Indeed, pig manure is widely used for its high fertilizer value [26], but several studies point out that the variability in nutrient content makes it difficult to valorize pig manure as it is [27,28]. Nevertheless, in these cases, the medium-high values accorded to environmental criteria may be due to some misunderstanding in the environmental effect of storage without processing, as previous studies have recorded that farmers that are aware of the environmental risk posed by pig manure tend to adopt some kind of processing technology [25,29]. Conversely, the best attitude towards environmentally-friendly treatment systems is expected and found on the farms adopting "Anaerobic Digestion in Continuous-flow Stirred-Tank Reactor (Ad-Cstr)", "Biological Nitrogen Removal in Sequencing Batch Reactor (BNR-SBR)", or "screw press separation".…”

Farmed insects for sustainable food systems

“…In addition, diverse manure processing technologies have been developed to modify the physical, chemical and/or biological properties of manure and hence reduce its environmental impact or facilitate its transport. However, despite the wide range of manure processing techniques available (Flotats et al, 2011) and the potential that some of these have to reduce some of the environmental impacts caused by manure (Hou et al, 2017;Zhang et al, 2019), these technologies have not been widely adopted in global livestock chains (Cai et al, 2019;China Ministry of Agriculture, 2016;Foged et al, 2011). High investment and operational costs with low returns, logistical complexity for implementation at the farm level, low social acceptance and environmental concerns due to the emission of malodorous volatile organic compounds and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, have constrained the large scale adoption of these technologies (Cai et al, 2019;Chadwick et al, 2015;Martinez et al, 2009).…”

“…However, despite the wide range of manure processing techniques available (Flotats et al, 2011) and the potential that some of these have to reduce some of the environmental impacts caused by manure (Hou et al, 2017;Zhang et al, 2019), these technologies have not been widely adopted in global livestock chains (Cai et al, 2019;China Ministry of Agriculture, 2016;Foged et al, 2011). High investment and operational costs with low returns, logistical complexity for implementation at the farm level, low social acceptance and environmental concerns due to the emission of malodorous volatile organic compounds and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, have constrained the large scale adoption of these technologies (Cai et al, 2019;Chadwick et al, 2015;Martinez et al, 2009). Although policies to reduce animal numbers in livestock-dense regions would directly reduce the environmental and health problems caused by surplus manure, 4 70 Nutrient flows during black soldier fly larvae rearing on pig manure simultaneously new short-term approaches for surplus manure management are needed to guarantee the transition towards more sustainable food systems.…”