College of Economics, Sichuan Agricultural University, Wenjiang District, Chengdu, 611130, Sichuan Province, China.
School of Public Affairs, Chongqing University, Shapingba District, Chongqing, 400044, China.
Environ Sci Pollut Res Int. 2021 May;28(20):25400-25418. doi: 10.1007/s11356-020-12337-z. Epub 2021 Jan 18.
The current agricultural system in China highly depends on chemical fertilizers and pesticides. Consequently, agricultural production activities cause various environmental issues. Carrying out safe production provides vital support for sustainable development of agriculture, which may improve this situation. The past decades have witnessed the fast development of rural cooperatives organization in China. Given the fact that rural cooperative organization plays a crucial role in agricultural production, however, there is little empirical evidence on the relationship between cooperative membership and safe production of smallholders in China. This study aims to investigate whether the participation in farmer cooperatives contributes to safe production in agriculture in China. Using survey data covering 623 rice-producing farm households in Sichuan province in China, this study employs the endogenous switching regression model to examine the effects of the participation in farmer cooperatives on safe production in rice agriculture. The results show that cooperative membership has significantly positive effects on safe production in rice agriculture. In particular, the average treatment effects demonstrate that without the participation in cooperatives, the members' adoption of the green control techniques would reduce by 74.491%, the application of artificial weeding would reduce by 38.768%, and organic fertilizer input would reduce by 23.448%. Furthermore, the marginal treatment effect is employed to evaluate the heterogeneous effects of the participation in farmer cooperatives on safe production in rice agriculture. Heterogeneous effect analyses suggest that farmers who are more likely to participate in farmer cooperatives are easier to adopt green control technology, while farmers who are less likely to participate in farmer cooperatives are easier to adopt artificial weeding and increase organic fertilizer input. To improve safe production in rice agriculture, the Chinese government is expected to encourage rice farmers to participate in rural cooperative organizations, and to stimulate rice farmers to take collective action to address environment issues arising from agricultural production.
当前中国的农业体系高度依赖化肥和农药。因此，农业生产活动引发了各种环境问题。开展安全生产为农业的可持续发展提供了重要支撑，可能会改善这种情况。过去几十年见证了中国农村合作社组织的快速发展。鉴于农村合作社组织在农业生产中起着至关重要的作用，但关于合作社成员与中国小农户安全生产之间关系的实证证据很少。本研究旨在探讨农民合作社的参与是否有助于中国农业的安全生产。本研究使用涵盖中国四川省 623 户水稻种植农户的调查数据，采用内生转换回归模型检验了农民合作社参与对水稻农业安全生产的影响。结果表明，合作社成员身份对水稻农业安全生产有显著的积极影响。具体而言，平均处理效应表明，如果不参与合作社，成员采用绿色防控技术的比例将减少 74.491%，人工除草的应用将减少 38.768%，有机肥投入将减少 23.448%。此外，采用边际处理效应评估了农民合作社参与对水稻农业安全生产的异质效应。异质效应分析表明，更有可能参与农民合作社的农民更容易采用绿色防控技术，而不太可能参与农民合作社的农民更容易采用人工除草和增加有机肥投入。为了提高水稻农业的安全生产水平，中国政府有望鼓励水稻农民参与农村合作社组织，并激励水稻农民采取集体行动来解决农业生产带来的环境问题。
