Na Hui, Kang Jiaxi
School of Economics, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, 730000, China.
School of Economics & Management, Lanzhou Jiaotong University, Lanzhou, 730070, China.
Heliyon. 2023 Oct 9;9(10):e20816. doi: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2023.e20816. eCollection 2023 Oct.
Fertilizers and pesticides are important agricultural production materials. Excessive use of fertilizers and pesticides can cause negative impacts such as decline in the quality of farm products and damage to the ecological environment. Increasing the efficiency of fertilizers and pesticides is an important step to accelerate the green transformation of agriculture. Using data from the 2015 China Household Finance Survey, this paper analyzes the impacts of Internet use on fertilizers and pesticides by farmers, and the mechanism behind the action with the help of the propensity score matching method and the instrumental variable method. The findings are: (1) Farmers who use the Internet have greater inputs of fertilizers and pesticides compared to farmers who do not use the Internet. (2) Farmers who do not use the Internet would have their inputs of fertilizers and pesticides increased by 21.9% and 47.7%, respectively, if they had used the Internet under the counterfactual hypothesis. (3) In the heterogeneity analysis, Internet use plays a positive and significant role in the inputs of fertilizer and pesticide in the eastern part of China, and Internet use has greater impact on pesticide inputs than on fertilizer in central and western regions. (4) Internet use has a positive and significant effect on fertilizer and pesticide inputs in both lower scale and higher scale operations, and a positive but not significant effect in moderate-scale operations.
化肥和农药是重要的农业生产资料。过量使用化肥和农药会造成农产品质量下降、生态环境破坏等负面影响。提高化肥和农药使用效率是加快农业绿色转型的重要举措。本文利用2015年中国家庭金融调查数据，借助倾向得分匹配法和工具变量法，分析了农民使用互联网对化肥和农药使用的影响及其作用机制。研究发现：（1）使用互联网的农民比不使用互联网的农民在化肥和农药上的投入更多。（2）在反事实假设下，如果不使用互联网的农民使用互联网，他们在化肥和农药上的投入将分别增加21.9%和47.7%。（3）在异质性分析中，互联网使用在中国东部地区的化肥和农药投入中发挥了积极且显著的作用，在中西部地区，互联网使用对农药投入的影响大于对化肥投入的影响。（4）互联网使用在小规模和大规模经营中对化肥和农药投入均有积极且显著的影响，在中等规模经营中则有积极但不显著的影响。
