Impacts of Risk Perception and Environmental Regulation on Farmers’ Sustainable Behaviors of Agricultural Green Production in China

Abstract

In China, the excessive application and improper disposal of chemical inputs have posed a great threat to the agricultural ecological environment and human health. The key to solve this problem is to promote the sustainable behaviors of farmers’ agricultural green production (AGP). Based on the micro-survey data of 652 farmers, this study adopts the binary probit model to investigate the impacts of risk perception and environmental regulation on the sustainable behaviors of farmers’ AGP. Results show that both risk perception and environmental regulation have significant effects on farmers’ willingness to engage in sustainable behaviors. Moreover, environmental regulation can positively adjust risk perception to improve farmers’ willingness to engage in sustainable behaviors. In terms of the two-dimensional variables, economic risks create the greatest negative impacts, and their marginal effect is 7.3%, while voluntary regulation creates the strongest positive impacts, and its marginal effect is 14.1%. However, both constrained and voluntary regulation have an enhanced moderating effect, where the effects of voluntary regulation are more remarkable. This is mainly because the environmental regulation policy signed by the government and farmers through the letter of commitment can inspire farmers to continue to implement green agricultural production from the deep heart. Therefore, government policies should constantly reduce farmers’ risk perception in terms of economic input, and adopt restrictive behaviors measures, such as regulatory punishment and voluntary contract, to promote their sustainable behaviors of AGP to the maximum extent.

Analysis of Influencing Factors and Mechanism of Farmers’ Green Production Behaviors in China

“…Secondly, the external pressure factors have a positive significant impact on the green production behaviors of small and medium-sized pig farmers. Previous study [7] has examined the role of environmental regulation on green production behavior, and this paper verifies this too. It is also found that community norms can promote green production behaviors.…”

“…Pig farmers must adapt their conduct quickly to the various stockholders' needs in order to promote longterm development. Existing studies prove that national environmental regulation has an important role in encouraging farmers to engage in green production behaviors; the stricter the regulation, the more likely it is that farmers will undergo a green transformation [7]. In addition, external monitoring and consumer demand are also important factors of farmers' transition to sustainable farming, which can effectively encourage farmers to implement green production behaviors [34][35][36].…”

“…Numerous studies have been conducted on the factors that contribute to farmers' adoption of environmentally friendly production practices, but not enough has been done to understand how small-and medium-sized farmers actually behave in this way. Farmers' knowledge of green production, environmental risks, clean and safe production, green production policies, and economic and social benefits is a significant contributor to their green production behaviors [5][6][7][8]. Government rules, social standards and environmental laws can all motivate farmers to adopt green production behaviors [9,10].…”

Ecological worldview moderates the mediation of implementation‐intentions found in the relationship between ecological concerns and pro‐environmental behaviour

“…Researchers have been trying to explore the critical antecedents of PEB across various cultures and countries (Balundė et al, 2019; Morren & Grinstein, 2016) so that it could be enhanced through interventional programmes. The existing literature has focused on personality factors, namely agreeableness, openness, and proactive personality (Gibbon & Douglas, 2021; Pavalache‐Ilie & Cazan, 2018), along with other attributes such as risk perception (Bradley et al, 2020; Li, Liu, Huang, et al, 2022; Li, Liu & Wuyun, 2022), altruism (De Dominicis et al, 2017), environmental attitudes and self‐efficacy (Huang, 2016; Shafiei & Maleksaeidi, 2020), and personal norms (Balundė et al, 2020; Van der Werff & Steg, 2016), which have been found to be significantly associated with PEB.…”

“…It is considered that values influence a wide range of environmental beliefs and behaviours (Tamar et al, 2020). A few studies have observed significant relationships among values, pro‐environmental intentions, and behaviours (Li, Liu, Huang, et al, 2022; Li, Liu & Wuyun, 2022; Stern, 2000; Wang et al, 2021). Among the values, four have been identified as relevant in the context of PEB (Steg et al, 2014), namely, biospheric, altruistic, egoistic, and hedonic.…”