The causal mechanism of farmers’ chemical fertilizer reduction: an empirical perspective from farmland transfer-in and digital extension

Abstract

In the context of rural revitalization, farmland transfer for the purpose of scale operation has not significantly promoted green agricultural development, and it is urgent to find ways to further promote farmland transfer-in to achieve chemical fertilizer reduction. Using the data of 1,298 farmers surveyed in the 2020 China Rural Revitalization Survey, this paper incorporates digital extension into the analytical framework between farmland transfer-in and chemical fertilizer reduction, analyzing their relationship in-depth. The results showed that: (1) From the basic regression results, farmland transfer-in and digital extension significantly reduced farmers’ chemical fertilizer application. (2) From the influence mechanism, digital extension played a negative moderating role in the effect of farmland transfer-in on chemical fertilizer application, reinforcing the chemical fertilizer reduction effect of farmland transfer-in. (3) From the heterogeneity analysis, farmland transfer-in has no significant heterogeneity in food function areas, but there is heterogeneity in different terrain and fertilizer dosage. (4) In terms of the scale of farmland transfer-in, when the area of transferred farmland was less than 100 mu, farmland transfer-in significantly reduced chemical fertilizer application; otherwise, farmland transfer-in did not achieve chemical fertilizer reduction. The above findings provide a reference for promoting moderate-scale farmland transfer and synergistic construction of farmland scale operation and digital extension.

Impact and Mechanisms of Digital Inclusive Finance in Relation to Farmland Transfer: Evidence from China

“…Because of the real factors of a large population and, thus, less land in China, as well as the land system, most of China's farmland is used in a small-scale and fragmented manner by farmers, which limits large-scale agricultural management and restricts the development of modern agriculture [38]. Over the past forty years, China's farmland transfer system has not been perfect.…”

“…To ensure the reliability of the results and control for the impact of other factors on land transfer, this paper, referencing existing studies [4,38], controlled for farmers' personal characteristics and farmers' family characteristics. The personal characteristics adopted "household head gender (GEN), household head health status (HEA), marital status (MAR), whether they joined cooperatives (COOP), and whether it is a specialized family farm" (SPE); the family level is represented by "the number of family members" (MEM) due to the relevant variables contained in farmers' livelihood capital.…”

Study of the Impact of Rural Land Transfer on the Status of Women in Rural Households

“…Referring to the research methods of Qian and Hong [51], Zhou et al [52], Li et al [53], and Hong and Lou [54], our study considers rural land transfer-out and rural land transferin as the core independent variables, which is mainly based on the two questions of "whether the land is leased to others" and "whether the land is rented from others" in the CFPS questionnaire of 2014. "Whether the land is leased to others" was selected as the measure of agricultural land transfer out, called "Landout", with a value of 1 for yes and 0 for no.…”

The role of highway construction in influencing agricultural green total factor productivity in China: agricultural industry structure transformation perspective

“…In addition, some socioeconomic factors are also considered the critical factors influencing the AGTFP, such as urbanization, human capital, digital development level, etc. (Fu and Zhang, 2022;Shen et al, 2022;Li L. et al, 2023;Li X. H. et al, 2023).…”