农户数字素养对化学农药减量使用的影响及其机制研究

Impact of farmers' digital literacy on pesticide reduction and their mechanism

推进农药减量化是全方位夯实粮食安全根基,加快农业绿色发展的必然要求。本文立足于我国农业绿色转型和数字经济快速发展的实践背景,探讨分析了农户数字素养对其化学农药减量使用的影响。本文基于中国家庭金融调查数据,构建了农户数字素养指数,发现农户数字素养提升会显著促使其农药使用减量。从农药使用的三个重要环节施药者、施药机械选择和施药技术出发,探索了这种影响的内在机制,发现了数字素养提升可以帮助农户树立绿色生产理念、选择高效施药机械、学习科学施药技术。异质性分析表明,数字素养对小规模种植户、未转入耕地的农户、所在村没有农业职业经理人的农户的农药使用减量边际效应更显著。本文的边际贡献在于,提供了数字技术介入对农户生产决策行为的影响效果,揭示了农户数字素养对农药使用决策的重要性。在推进农业农村现代化和大力实施乡村振兴战略的背景下,本文的研究结论为促进绿色农业发展和保障粮食安全提供了微观基础和有益启示。

Reducing pesticide use is an inevitable requirement for consolidating the foundation of food security and accelerating the green development of agriculture. Based on the practical background of China' s agricultural green transformation and the rapid development of digital economy, this paper discusses and analyzes the impact of farmers' digital literacy on their chemical pesticide reduction use. Using the data from China's household and finance survey to construct a digital literacy index and analyses the impact of digital literacy on farmers' pesticide reduction. The findings demonstrate that increasing farmers' digital literacy significantly promotes pesticide reduction, even when endogeneity issues are taken into account using instrumental variables. And exploring the internal mechanisms of this effect from three crucial pesticide application components: pesticide applicator, spraying equipment and spraying techniques, we find that increasing digital literacy will help farmers to establish the idea of environmentally friendly production, choose cost-effective spraying machines, and be knowledgeable about scientific spraying techniques. Heterogeneity analysis reveals that among small-scale farmers, those who are not transferring into land, and those whose villages do not have agricultural professional managers, the improvement of digital literacy has more marginal impact on the reduction of pesticide use. The contribution of the article is to show how digital technology interventions affect farmers' behavior in making production decisions and to highlight the significance of farmers' digital literacy in making pesticide use decisions. The research findings of this paper present micro-foundation and ideas for improving green agricultural development and food security under the background of promoting agricultural and rural modernization and speeding up the rural revitalization strategy.