From livelihood strategies to green actions:A study on the relationship between farmers'environmental awareness and pro-environmental sustainable behaviors in the Huaibei Plain

In order to explore the impact of changes in rural livelihoods in China on the environmental awareness and behavior of farmers,with the Huaibei Plain as an example,309 farmer households in Lingbi County in Huaibei Plain were surveyed.The variance analysis was used to determine the differences in environmental perceptions and pro-environmental behavior of farmers with different livelihoods.Structural equation models were used to analyze the relationships between livelihood type and environmental perception and behavior.The results show:(1)As the level of non-agricultural activities engaged in by farmers increases,their environmental perceptions shift,evidenced by a rise in both the Environmental Concern Index(ECI)and the Awareness of Pollution Hazards Index(APHI).However,there is a corresponding decrease in their Perception of Changes within the Agroecosystem(PCAE).(2)APHI caused by automobiles,pesticides,and fertilizers varies significantly among groups with different livelihood strategies(p<0.05).(3)Pro-environmental behavior(PEB),particularly in the realms of green consumption and waste management,correlates with the level of non-agriculturalization.Significant variations in these behaviors are observed among farmers with different livelihood strategies(p<0.05).(4)The livelihood strategies have significant direct impact on farmers’environmental perceptions(path coefficient 0.923 p<0.001)and a significant indirect impact on farmers’PEB(path coefficient 0.913 p<0.001).Thus,as farmers shift away from agriculture,their environmental perceptions and behaviors are changing.Diversifying livelihoods reduces dependence on natural resources and increases access to environmental knowledge.This diversification fosters greater awareness of environmental issues and a willingness of farmers to adopt environmentally friendly practices,positively impacting rural environment.Thus,by promoting diversified livelihoods,it is possible to create a powerful strategy for rural environmental governance.

Willingness of farmers to participate in food traceability systems:improving the level of food safety

In order to solve frequently emerging food safety problems and adapt to the developing trends in the international food safety field, the Chinese government is establishing and developing food traceability systems. Whether or not food traceability sys- tems can guarantee food safety is a problem well worth discussing. Hence, we constructed a theoretical model to explore the effect of incentives in a food traceability system in order to improve food safety levels. The following results were obtained： enhancing the ef- fectiveness of a food traceability system, increasing the payment to farmers who supply safe agricultural products and strengthening the penalty for unsafe food supply actions are necessary conditions to improve the level of food safety. How to encourage farmers to use food traceability systems is another problem explored in our investigation. Based on a field survey on the willingness of vegetable growers to participate using a vegetable traceability system in Beijing, the first city in China to develop such a system, we used a de- scriptive statistics and a binary logistic regression model to investigate the factors which dominate the decision on the part of farmers to participate in a food safety system. The results indicate that i： younger farmers are more likely to get involved in a food traceability system than older farmers, ii： income from non-agricultural activities decreases the willingness of farmers to participate, iii： the high- er the cost-benefit ratio of growing vegetables, the more likely for farmers to engage in a food traceability system, iv： farmers with a great concern for food safety information have a high propensity to participate and v： increased penalties against unsafe food supply actions and high-risk expectation are adverse incentives. In contrast, high-price expectation is a positive incentive for farmers to par- ticipate, while agricultural training, government subsidies and being part of an industrial organization will significantly strengthen the confidence of farmers to participate in a food safety system.

Influence Factors of Farmers' Willingness to Poverty Alleviation Relocation in South Shaanxi Province

In southern Shaanxi,far from the core areas of politics and economy,the conditions are inconvenient and farmers have been threatened by geology,floods for many years,resulting in a large population of poor people.The relocation of poverty alleviation project in southern Shaanxi is helpful for improving living standards of people in disaster-stricken areas.Based on the field survey,this paper analyzed 274 valid questionnaires and established a Logistic Regression Analysis Model.The result shows that the health status of head of household,road type before relocation,annual loss of disasters,and changes in the family income after relocation have a greater influence on the relocation willingness of farmers,while the educational level of householder,the distance from the original place of residence to the town and market,the condition of household electricity before relocation and other factors have a little influence on the relocation willingness of farmers.

Willingness of Farmers Joining Professional Cooperatives——Based on the Questionnaire Survey of Nanjing

Based on the questionnaire survey of farmers in Nanjing City,the research analyzes the influencing factors of farmers' willingness joining professional cooperatives with Binary Logistic model.Results show that variable factors such as:labors,degrees of education,levels of awareness,development of judgments,have positive relation to the willingness of farmers joining professional cooperatives;gender and financial demands are negative related to willingness of farmers joining professional cooperatives;variable factors,such as ages,degrees of education,numbers of farmers,scale of land,generation experience,specific investment and fluctuations of prices,the estimated parameters of which are not significant.At last,the paper points out that the 2 important ways in accelerating the development of professional cooperatives are:the first is to accelerate the capital accumulation of advanced farmers and strengthen the scaled degrees of agricultural management.The second is to promote the information and techniques accumulation speed of professional farmers to strengthen people's awareness and confidence.

Factors Influencing Farmers' Willingness to Participate in the New Vocational Training

Probit model is applied to analyze some key factors influencing farmers' willingness to participate in the new vocational training for farmers based on 683 questionnaires from 8 districts in Chongqing. The results show that individual and family factors significantly affect farmers' participation will. These factors are age,family scale and years of education. Age is the most important factor,family scale is of secondary importance and years of education are the third one. Meanwhile,years of education positively affect farmers' participation willingness;there is a negative correlation among age,family scale and this willingness. Organizer,rural economic development level and training experience have no significant influence on this willingness.

Study on the Influence of Farmer Social Capital on Cooperative Supply Willingness of Agricultural Disaster Reduction Public Goods——Based on the Investigation on 515 Farmers

Based on social capital theory,related factors of three dimensions( structure dimension,cognition dimension and relation dimension) of farmer social capital are taken as independent variables,and famer's willingness to cooperatively supply agricultural disaster reduction public goods is taken as dependent variable. Taking 515 farmers in 27 villages of Hubei Province as investigation objects,the influence of farmer social capital on cooperative supply willingness of agricultural disaster reduction public goods is explored by Logistic regression model. Research results show that social solidarity,common value concept,social trust and reciprocal content have positive impact on farmer's willingness of cooperative supply,while annual household income,number of agricultural disaster reduction public goods and social network have negative impact on farmer's willingness of cooperative supply.

Factors Influencing Willingness and Ability of Farmers to Adopt New Technologies:A Case Study of Guanzhong Area

Based on data of 248 rural households in Pucheng County and Huxian County,we established the Two-Level Logit Model to analyze the willingness of farmers to adopt new technologies,its influence factors,and probability of successful adoption of new technologies.Results show that the willingness has positive correlation with whether the farmer is head of household,the educational level,occupation,agricultural loan,the number of family labor,and information dissemination channel,while it has negative correlation with non-agricultural employment proportion and whether the farmer is village cadre.In the model of the probability of farmers'successfully adopting new technologies,occupation,agricultural loan,planting area,gender and educational level are positively correlated,while age and non-agricultural employment proportion are negatively correlated.Largescale flow of rural labor plays a negative role in popularization of technologies in rural areas through influencing factors,including number of family labor,non-agricultural employment proportion,educational level,gender,and whether the farmer is village cadre.Finally,on the basis of results of empirical study,we put forward countermeasures and suggestions for strengthening ability of farmers to adopt new technologies.

Farmers'Willingness to Withdraw from Rural Homesteads

In order to grasp the relationship between farmers'willingness and behavior to withdraw from rural homesteads,based on the theory of planned behavior,a survey was conducted in Jizhou District,Tianjin using convenience sampling method.A total of 443 valid questionnaires were collected and they were analyzed by SPSS.The results are as follows.(i)The willingness of farmers to withdraw from rural homesteads is affected by pre-cognitive factors such as behavioral attitude,subject norm and perceived behavior control.(ii)Among the benefits that can be brought by the withdrawal of homesteads,farmers value the improvement of the housing environment the most.(iii)Family members'view and relatives and neighbors'withdrawing from homesteads also exerts greater pressure on farmers.(iv)Farmers generally lack trust in the village committees or government departments'claims.(v)The cost of relocation also restricts the perceived behavior control of farmers'homesteads withdrawing.Based on above result,the following suggestions are made:strengthening policy publicity,raising farmers'awareness of policies related to the withdrawal of homesteads,fully respecting farmers'wishes,promoting the withdrawal of rural homesteads in an orderly manner,expanding the scope of compensation for withdrawal of rural homesteads,and enriching compensation methods.

Investigation on Farmers'Willingness to Participate in Rural Non-point Source Pollution Control in Nantong and Analysis of Its Influencing Factors

Based on the questionnaire survey of 337 farmers in 8 villages in Rugao City,Jiangsu Province,the gender,age and educational level of the main able-bodied people of farm households,the characteristics of farmers’production and living behaviors,farmers’cognition of rural non-point source pollution,and farmers’willingness to pay for rural non-point source pollution control and its influencing factors were studied.The results show that to protect the rural ecological environment,most farmers are willing to participate in rural non-point source pollution control,but the annual cost of rural non-point source pollution control is low,and the number of volunteer days is small.Rural grass-roots party organizations should stimulate farmers’willingness to participate in rural non-point source pollution control,give full play to the role of the branch as a fighting fortress,and build a mechanism for Party building to lead rural non-point source pollution control.

Analysis on Consumption Behavior of Zhejiang Province's Farmers from the Perspective of Their Income Increase

With rapid development of industrialization in Zhejiang Province, surplus rural labor forces move to the secondary and tertiary industries. Farmers of Zhejiang Province are no exception. They turn to industrial workers and their income source has great changes. Wage income becomes their major source of income. Accordingly, farmers' consumption behavior has great changes. Apart from satisfying basic production and living demands, farmers start to pursue living quality and their life style tends to urbanization. Nevertheless, under the influence of rural physical environment, policies and systems, the existing consumption environment fails to follow farmers' urban lifestyle any more. In line with how to optimize rural consumption environment, improve farmers' consuming capacity, continue to expand farmers' consumption and promote urbanization development of rural areas, this paper presents pertinent countermeasures and recommendations.

An Empirical Study of Farmers' Perception and Behavior on Farmland Abandonment in Yunnan Province

In this study,using the PRA method,we conduct a questionnaire survey on 525 farmers in 10 typical villages in Yunnan Province,and study the farmers' farmland abandonment behavior as well as their perception. Studies have shown that there are some common problems for the villages in the inner suburbs and the villages in the outer suburbs such as small scale of rural land,dispersed plots and land fragmentation,and the scale and fragmentation problems are more prominent in the villages in the inner suburbs while the dispersed plot problems are more obvious in the villages in the outer suburbs; the levels of farmland abandonment vary in different sample villages,the farmland abandonment is more prevalent in the villages in the outer suburbs,the abandonment behavior involves more farmers,and farmers tend to abandon small plots of farmland; the proportion of the abandoned farmland perceived by the farmers in the villages in the inner and outer suburbs( especially in the inner suburbs) is significantly lower than the actual proportion,and farmers' perception greatly deviates from the actual reality; some farmers have wrong perception of farmland abandonment behavior,and even if there are farmers with correct perception,they also abandon farmland.

Empirical research on impacted factor of farmer＇s willingness for purchasing information Based on the survey data of Hebei province

Farmer＇s willingness for purchasing information, an important factor of farmer＇s information demand, was analyzed by logit model, according to the survey data of 535 farmers from eleven cities in Hebei province. The result showed that 6 factors had a significant influence on it, that is, education of farmers, per capita income of farmers, the affordability of information risk, the proportion of agricultural labor households, the type of agricultural production and the rural information service stations. On the basis of these, the related policy recommendations were proposed.

Research on Influence Factors of Pig Farmers' Ecological Farming Behavior: Based on the TPB and SEM

China's extensive development model of pig industry gives rise to serious resource and environment bottleneck restriction,it is urgent to transform the existing development model into ecological farming model. In this process,farmers' behavior will play a key role. On the basis of summarizing development connotation and characteristics of ecological agriculture,using survey data of 323 pig farmers in 6 provinces,based on the Theory of Planned Behavior( TPB) it introduced individual characteristics and external environment constraint variables,and made an empirical analysis on factors influencing intention and behavior of pig farmers' ecological farming using the Structural Equation Model( SEM). Results indicate:( i) ecological farming intention of pig farmers has the largest direct effect on their ecological farming behavior;( ii)ecological farming cognition of pig farmers has significant positive effect on their ecological farming behavior;( iii) external environment has the largest indirect effect on their ecological farming behavior,followed by the overall effect,and external environment has significant positive effect on ecological farming attitude and cognition of pig farmers;( iv) individual characteristics( educational level and income level) of pig farmers influence ecological farming behavior of pig farmers through their ecological farming attitude and intention,but the degree of influence is limited.

Regional Difference Analysis of Farmers' Land Use Behavior

Based on the survey data and statistical information on farmers,we conduct comparative analysis of land use behavior of farmers in the Jianghan Plain and the hilly areas of Xianning City in Hubei Province.We find that the utilization rate of agricultural land and level of agricultural labor output in the plain areas are higher than in the hilly areas;at the same time,the degree of mechanization of agricultural land utilization and farmers'land use scale are larger in the plain areas.But the crop type in the plain areas is single,and the decline rate of the growing area of food crops is higher in recent twenty years;meanwhile,the material input costs and opportunity cost of labor for the agricultural land utilization in the plain areas are greater than in the hilly areas.

Analysis on Farmers’ Straw Marketization Behavior and Its Influence Factors: A Case Study of Hubei Province

Crop straw has huge resource potential. It has an important significance for realizing waste recycling and improving eco-environment to prefect straw marketization system and sufficiently stimulate farmers’ straw marketization behavior. Based on 427 copies of investigation data on farmers,influence mechanism framework of farmers’ straw marketization behavior is constructed,and key factors of farmers’ straw marketization behavior are analyzed. Results show that farmers joining in straw marketization account for 42. 1%; in influence factors of farmers’ straw marketization behavior,cultivated land area,market price level,logistics satisfaction and air quality perception have significantly positive impacts on farmers’ straw marketization behavior,while education degree,agricultural income proportion and traffic convenience have significantly negative impacts on farmers’ straw marketization behavior. Therefore,it needs strengthening propaganda intensity,carrying out reasonable subsidies and support,encouraging and breeding new type of organization,and establishing and improving the price mechanism of straw marketization to perfect straw marketization construction.

Behavior configuration of tea farmers’ participation in ecotourism environmental responsibility from the perspective of system theory

The coordination and optimization of eco-tourism development and world heritage protection are related to the sustainable development of the two,and the behavior of tea farmers is affected by the multiple subjects of rural production and living system,which has nonlinear and complex characteristics.In view of this,based on the theory of human-land system,this study is using system theory and fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis(fsQCA)to explore the internal mechanism of tea farmers‘environmental responsibility behavior.The results show that:(1)single factor,infrastructure environment perception constitutes a necessary condition for environmental responsibility behavior,and there is equivalence between infrastructure environment perception,Cultural environment perception,external intervention perception and environmental supervision perception.(2)Infrastructure environment perception and cultural environment perception are important internal driving forces for high environmental responsibility behavior,while external intervention perception and environmental supervision perception constitute external traction.(3)Infrastructure environment perception and cultural environment perception exist in all configurations in a single or common form.This provides enlightenment for changing the governance logic of ecotourism and improving the governance performance of ecotourism.

How Environmental Attitudes Affect Consumers’Willingness to Engage in Green Consumption Behaviors:The Moderating Role of“Plastic Restriction”

Consumers’willingness to engage in green consumption behavior will be guided by internal psychological factors and also influenced by external environmental factors.One of the most common external interventions is the issuance of scientific policies and regulations.The government may introduce policies and regulations that help to increase the willingness of green consumption behavior,such as energy-saving and emission reduction policies and policies to restrict plastic products.In this paper,the authors study the mechanism of the effect of environmental attitudes on consumers’willingness to engage in green consumption behavior from the perspective of“plastic restriction”,and conclude that the magnitude of the effect of policies and regulations on the willingness to engage in green consumption behavior varies significantly at different levels of environmental attitudes.This study provides scientific implementation ideas and targeted management suggestions for the government to formulate effective external intervention policies for green consumption.

Do large-scale farmers use more pesticides? Empirical evidence from rice farmers in five Chinese provinces

It is of great theoretical and practical significance to understand the rules of the differences in pesticide use behaviors between large-scale and small-scale farmers,so as to regulate the behavior of farmers differently and improve the quality and safety of rice.The overall pesticide use behavior of large-scale farmers was characterized by large doses and high application frequency,while that of small-scale farmers was characterized by small doses and low application frequency.The econometric test showed that(i)the proportion of staple food ration has a significant negative impact on the single dose exceeding the standard and pesticide application frequency of small-scale farmers,and the increase of the proportion of staple food ration will reduce the demand among small-scale farmers for pesticides;(ii)yield effect has a greater impact on the frequency of pesticide application by large-scale farmers,and the large yield effect will increase the frequency of pesticide application among large-scale farmers.Therefore,in pesticide use behaviors,large-scale farmers should reduce pesticide quantity and increase efficiency,while small-scale farmers improve the level of plant protection.

Analysis of Factors Influencing Farmers' Identification of Entrepreneurial Opportunity

Based on the survey data of entrepreneurship concerning farmers in China,this article uses the multivariate adjustment regression analysis method,to analyze the factors influencing farmers' identification of entrepreneurial opportunity and the mechanism. The results show that demographic characteristics are still an important factor influencing farmers' identification of entrepreneurial opportunity,but the extent of its influence is weaker than entrepreneurs' trait. The new trait theory is verified in farmers' entrepreneurship opportunity behavior; entrepreneurship environment is becoming an important factor influencing entrepreneurial opportunity identification,whose regulation effect on entrepreneurs' social network and previous experience is stronger than the regulation effect on entrepreneurs' psychological trait.

Farmer behavior and perceptions to alternative scenarios in a highly intensive agricultural region,south central China

Intensive agriculture has caused unintended environmental consequences, such as water quality degradation. It is necessary for policymakers to make proper planning of sustainable agricultural development. Using a Pressure-State-Response （PSR） framework, we conducted surveys focused on farmer behavior toward agriculture and environmental protection in 2009 and 2011. The surveys indicated that farmer behavior was complex and contradictory, and caused some environmental effects. Therefore, we used normative landscape scenario method to develop two scenarios. Both scenarios emphasized on stable economic growth along with water quality improvement and presented good effects. A feedback survey was organized in 2013 to interpret farmers＇ perceptions of the alternative scenarios. The results indicate Scenario I is likely to be accepted by farmers; however, the beautiful rural landscape in Scenario.II represents what farmers want, and Scenario I or II can be achieved by changing farm behavior in the future. By logistic regression model analysis, increasing agriculture benefits and new technology popularization were key factors affecting farmer behavior. Relevant policy implications on farmers were proposed. This paper showed how important to understand farmer behavior and perceptions to agricultural development, and a description of the alternative scenarios and policy implications are meaningful for policymakers to manage nature resources.