Research on the Impact of Members’ Social Capital within Agricultural Cooperatives on Their Adoption of IPM in China

Abstract

Agricultural cooperatives are effective facilitators of green production technology promotion. What is the role of social capital within agricultural cooperatives with the most competitive advantage in technology promotion? Using the survey data of 465 citrus-planting cooperative members in Sichuan Province, this study uses the IV-probit model and mediating effect model to analyze the impact role of social capital within agricultural cooperatives on its members’ adoption of integrated pest management (IPM) technology. The bootstrap method is also used to test the robustness of the parameter estimates. The results show that: (1) the social capital within agricultural cooperatives has a significant positive impact on IPM adoption; (2) cooperative members’ IPM cognition has a partial mediating effect on the impact of the social capital within agricultural cooperatives on its members’ adoption of IPM technology (more than 51.37%). Therefore, among all the optional IPM technology promotion measures of cooperatives, multi-dimensional accumulation of the social capital within agricultural cooperatives and promotion of IPM technology awareness level of members is a viable path.

Capital social e cooperativas agrícolas: um estudo sobre a produção científica nos últimos 20 anos

“…Nesse contexto, a forma como as cooperativas agrícolas geram e impulsionam capital social tem atraído a atenção dos pesquisadores. (FORGÁCS, 2006;LATTUADA et al, 2011;OLLILA;OLLILA;HESS, 2014;KASABOV, 2016;AKAHOSHI;BINOTTO, 2016;FENG;FRIIS;NILSSON, 2015;AJATES, 2021;VÉRONIQUE DE HERDE et al, 2022;LIU et al, 2022;ZAIATS;KRAIEVSKA;DIAKONENKO, 2022). Alguns desses estudos abordaram sobre questões de participação, comprometimento e confiança dos membros em cooperativas agrícolas (FORGÁCS, 2006;AKAHOSHI;BINOTTO, 2016;VÉRONIQUE DE HERDE et al, 2022).…”

“…Nas seções seguintes, serão apresentadas discussões referentes aos três agrupamentos de destaque desta revisão sistemática, enfocando-se nos principais estudos e suas contribuições para a abordagem da TCS em cooperativas agrícolas. Capital social e adoção de tecnologias em cooperativas agrícolas (CORDARO; DESDOIGTS, 2021); (YAHAYA et al,, 2019); (LIU et al, 2022) 3 Total 67 Fonte: Dados da pesquisa (2023).…”

“…Nesse contexto, as pesquisas pertencentes ao agrupamento de "TCS em cooperativas agrícolas" caracterizam-se por serem trabalhos recentes desenvolvidos em sua maioria nos últimos sete anos, com destaque para os artigos mais atuais que foram realizados nos dois últimos anos, como Dolatabad, Ebrahimi e Amini ( 2022 Os trabalhos relacionados a essa temática demonstram que para compreender a complexidade da governança cooperativa (organização estrutural da tomada de decisão coletiva) e a dinâmica de interação entre a cooperativa e seus cooperados, a teoria do capital social é de suma importância (VÉRONIQUE DE HERDE et al, 2022). Essa interação está baseada na confiança entre os membros dentro e fora da organização, em termos de confiança interna quanto maior o nível de confiança dos agricultores, mais propício é para estabelecer mecanismos de compartilhamento de informações e consenso entre os membros (LIU et al, 2022).…”

The role of farmer cooperatives in promoting environmentally sustainable agricultural development in China: A review

“…Some studies report that cooperatives can increase farmers’ adoption of sustainable farming technologies (Li et al., 2021b; Li, Dang, & Yu, 2022; Liu et al., 2022a; Luo et al., 2022; Dong et al., 2023; Zhang et al., 2023). A list of empirical studies on the association between cooperative membership and farmers’ adoption of environmentally sustainable farming technologies is presented in Table 2.…”

“…(2023), who find that production services provided by cooperatives—such as plant protection operations and field management—positively affect the application of physical control techniques by allowing cooperative members to achieve economies of scale. Social networks within cooperatives can help members obtain resources such as labor, information, and financial support, which could promote their adoption of integrated pest management technology (Liu et al., 2022a). Li, Dang, and Yu (2022) indicate that increased cognition of green production is the primary channel through which cooperatives facilitate farmers to adopt green technologies.…”