The Deviation of the Behaviors of Rice Farmers from Their Stated Willingness to Apply Biopesticides—A Study Carried Out in Jilin Province of China

Abstract

The substitution of chemical pesticides by biopesticides is crucial to ensure the quality of agricultural products and to foster environmental sustainability. This study takes the willingness and the behaviors of rice farmers on the application of biopesticides as the research object. The survey questionnaire was designed based on the theory of rational small-scale farmers from three aspects: “individual and family characteristics of farmers”, “cognition of farmers” and “external factors”. The survey was then conducted on 163 rice farmers in seven prefecture-level cities in Jilin Province of China. The logistic model was used to analyze the influencing factors resulting in the deviation of the behaviors of the rice farmers from their initial willingness on the application of biopesticides. The explanatory structure model (ISM) was used to analyze the logical hierarchical relationship among various influencing factors. The results show that: (1) For 45% of the farmers surveyed, there’s a deviation between their willingness and behaviors regarding the application of biopesticides; (2) Among the significant factors leading to the deviation between farmers’ willingness and behaviors concerning the application of biopesticides, the surface-level direct factor is biopesticide awareness. The mid-level indirect factors are agricultural product quality and safety awareness and the deep-level root cause is farmers’ education level. (3) The primary reason for the deviation of the farmers’ behaviors from their willingness is their lack of knowledge about biopesticides and the biopesticides’ incomplete market structure. Based on the comprehensive analysis, it is recommended to improve the professionalization of the farmers, to strengthen the publicity of green production and to accelerate the formulation of the biopesticides market to further promote the usage of biopesticides.

Gap between Willingness and Behaviors: Understanding the Consistency of Farmers’ Green Production in Hainan, China

“…Based on the field research data in Hainan Province, this paper empirically analyzes the factors influencing farmers’ green production behavior–willingness deviation, and explores the logical hierarchy among the influencing factors. The main findings are as follows: firstly, 94.72% of the farmers’ green production behavior and willingness are not consistent; there are deviations between the farmers’ green production behavior and willingness, which is consistent with the results obtained by Guo et al (2021) [ 9 ], Liu et al (2021) [ 17 ] and Xu et al (2021) [ 60 ], indicating that there is also a serious behavior–willingness deviation in the process of green agricultural production in tropical China. Secondly, age, number of dependents, peer influence, and social network have a significant positive effect on farmers’ green production behavior–willingness deviation, while ethnicity, education, land fragmentation, agricultural expenditure, land transfer, neighborhood learning, and green production cognition have a negative influence on the deviation.…”

“…Under the government’s publicity and incentives, environmental protection and sustainable development are nothing new in China. Most Chinese farmers are willing to adopt green production techniques [ 9 ]. However, although most farmers have accepted and agreed to the value of ecological production, their traditional production behavior has not changed significantly.…”

“…Theoretically, the contradiction between farmer’s behavior and will is mainly the result of multiple factors, including individual characteristics and family endowment. For example, Li (2021) [ 18 ] analyzed the key factors that influence the willingness–behavior consistency of farmers to adopt photovoltaic agriculture, and Qiu (2022) [ 19 ] explored whether there is a deviation between farmers’ willingness and behavior to adopt electricity-saving tricycles, and they both concluded that gender, age, education, planting scale, and land transfer can significantly affect the deviation between farmers’ production behavior and willingness Guo (2021) [ 9 ] took rice farmers’ willingness and behaviors regarding the application of biopesticides as the research object, and argued that farmers’ green production cognition significantly negatively affects the deviation. Academics also found that the external environment—such as government support, regional differences, and proximity to cities—can affect farmers’ green production behavior–willingness deviation [ 20 , 21 , 22 , 23 ].…”

Study on the Influencing Factors of Farmers’ Adoption of Conservation Tillage Technology in Black Soil Region in China: A Logistic-ISM Model Approach

“…Guo et al, studied the behavior and willingness of farmers to apply biopesticides. The results show that education, rice planting scale, cognition of biopesticides, social norms and other factors will affect farmers' adoption of biopesticides [33]. Sheikh et al, believe that when adopting no tillage technology, personal characteristics are the main influencing factors, including education level, identity of renters, attitude towards new technology risks and technology promotion of extension personnel [34].…”

Deviation between willingness and actual behavior regarding community participation in protected areas: A case study in Shengjin lake national nature reserve in China

“…Generally, willingness predicts and leads to the realization of the corresponding actual behavior of an individual; however, many previous studies have confirmed that there is a deviation between willingness and behavior in real life, such as in commodity consumption , services purchases (Qu et al, 2022), e-commerce adoption (Li et al, 2020), and land transfer (Zhang et al, 2020a). This deviation has been further identified in the field of pro-environmental behaviors such as green consumption (Rausch and Kopplin, 2021;Wang et al, 2021;Ma et al, 2022;Qiu et al, 2022), green agriculture (Guo et al, 2021;Li et al, 2021), garbage classification (Kuang and Lin, 2021;Zhang et al, 2022;Zhou et al, 2022), bird conservation donation (Eylering et al, 2022), and renewable energy development support (Fang et al, 2021). All these studies concluded that the willingness of an individual is higher than the actual behavior demonstrates.…”