This paper estimates the heterogeneous effects of cooperative membership on smallholder farmers' financial performance, measured by net returns, return on investment (ROI), and profit margin. We employ an innovative two-stage predictor substitution model combined with an unconditional quantile regression model to address the endogeneity of the cooperative membership variable and analyze data collected from 626 banana farmers in China. Results, in general, show that cooperative membership improves banana farm financial performance. Particularly, we show that cooperative membership affects net returns and ROI positively and significantly across the selected unconditional quantiles, with the highest impact occurring at the highest 80th quantile. Cooperative membership also has a positive and significant impact on the profit margin for all quantiles (except for the 20th quantile), but the larger impacts occurring at the lower quantiles.

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Low-carbon agricultural practices (LAPs) can reduce carbon emissions in agricultural production for farmers in developing countries. However, the role of emerging social media has not received enough attention in the diffusion of LAPs among farmers. This study first attempts to examine the impact of farmers’ social media participation on their adoption intensity of LAPs using the Zero-truncated Poisson model and specify the effect of each participation activity on social media by the endogenous-treatment Poisson regression model, then discuss the economic performance of LAPs using the quantile regression model, based on the primary data collected from banana farmers in Southern China. The results show that social media participation exerts a positive and significant effect on farmers’ adoption intensity of LAPs. Specifically, the adoption intensity of LAPs in the treated group who participated in the short-video social media is about 1.1 times higher than that in the control group. The treatment effects of the five activities (watch, like, forward, comment, and release) on farmers’ adoption intensity of LAPs are positive and significant. We also find that adoption of LAPs can increase household income of farmers, and the effect presents particularly significant for those at the higher income level. Whilst, Social media participation can significantly increase household income of farmers who are at the lower income level. Our findings underscore the important role of social media in the diffusion of LAPs among farmers and income growth of households in developing countries. Thus, supportive strategies can be designed by policymakers for encouraging farmers to participate the emerging social media platforms and adopt more LAPs in agricultural production.

(1) Background: Rare empirical evidence has been explored concerning the ways in which training affects farmers’ adoption of resource conservation technology in agricultural production. This study attempts to analyze the role of three factors, including farmers’ absorptive capacity, social interaction and active learning, in bridging agricultural training and farmers’ adoption of the drip fertigation system (DFS), based on the primary data of 632 banana farmers collected in China. (2) Methods: A mediation model is used to estimate the role of farmers’ absorptive capacity, social interaction and active learning in the relationship between agricultural training and farmers’ adoption of the DFS. A treatment effect model (TEM) is employed to address the potential endogeneity problem. (3) Results: The results show that agricultural training has significantly increased farmers’ adoption of the DFS in banana cultivation. The mediating effect of the three factors appears statistically significant. Specifically, farmers’ active learning contributes to the effect of agricultural training on encouraging their adoption of the DFS by around 60 percent; farmers’ absorptive capacity and social interaction contribute about 30 and 10 percent, respectively. This study also find that agricultural training can increase farmers’ adoption rate of the DFS by 18.75 percent after the endogeneity problem has been addressed using the treatment effect model (TEM). (4) Conclusions: The findings suggest that agricultural training can promote farmers’ adoption of the DFS through improving their absorptive capacity, social interaction and active learning. Understating these mediating factors will enable extension agency to design effective agricultural training programs and better promote resource-conservation technologies in developing countries.