School of Business, Jiangnan University, Lihudadao 1800, Wuxi 214122, China.
Food Safety Research Base of Jiangsu Province, Jiangnan University, Wuxi 214122, China.
Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2018 Aug 24;15(9):1829. doi: 10.3390/ijerph15091829.
The main objective of this study is to examine how market returns and external pressure influence farmers' standardized pesticide application and to investigate the moderating role of information acquisition. Data were collected from 986 farmers following a multi-stage sampling method from five major agricultural provinces in China. A hierarchical regression analysis was performed to test the hypothesis. The results show that market returns and information acquisition of pesticide application had a significant and positive influence on standardized pesticide application. Also, interaction effects were found between acquisition of policy information and market returns, and also between acquisition of pesticide application information and external pressure. The policy implication is that the improvement of market returns of safe agricultural products is a potential way to improve farmers' pesticide usage behaviors. Policy information and pesticide application information should be widely provided to farmers in order to facilitate the transition to standardized pesticide application.
本研究的主要目的是检验市场回报和外部压力如何影响农民的标准化农药施用，并探讨信息获取的调节作用。研究采用多阶段抽样方法，从中国五个主要农业省份收集了 986 名农民的数据。采用层次回归分析方法检验了假设。结果表明，市场回报和农药施用信息获取对标准化农药施用有显著的正向影响。此外，还发现政策信息获取和市场回报之间以及农药施用信息获取和外部压力之间存在交互作用。这一政策含义是，提高安全农产品的市场回报是改善农民农药使用行为的一种潜在途径。应向农民广泛提供政策信息和农药施用信息，以促进向标准化农药施用的转变。
