Impact of Internet Use on Farmers’ Organic Fertilizer Application Behavior under the Climate Change Context: The Role of Social Network

Qianhui Ma, Shaofeng Zheng () and Peng Deng
Additional contact information
Qianhui Ma: College of Economics and Management, Northwest A&F University, Xianyang 712100, China
Shaofeng Zheng: College of Economics and Management, Northwest A&F University, Xianyang 712100, China
Peng Deng: College of Forestry, Northwest A&F University, Xianyang 712100, China

Land, 2022, vol. 11, issue 9, 1-19

Abstract: Climate change and global warming significantly influence farmers’ activity and lead to lower production yield. To increase production without deteriorating the environment, it is vital to substitute chemical fertilizer with organic fertilizer. The utilization of organic fertilizer not only improves the soil quality but also protects the environment and helps mitigate global warming repercussions. So, there is a need to promote organic fertilizer utilization. The Internet, as an essential information medium, presently has a profound influence on farmers’ production behavior. However, the relationship between Internet use and the application of organic fertilizer is explicitly sparse, especially in China. Using the survey data of 797 vegetable growers, the current study explores the impact of Internet use on farmers’ organic fertilizer application behavior. The present study employs the propensity score matching (PSM) method to meet the study objective. According to the findings, it is unveiled that the Internet significantly promotes behavior towards applying organic fertilizer by approximately 10%. Further, the heterogeneity results show that the degree of impact varies due to differences in the level of education, vegetable farming income, and the number of vegetable laborers in the family. Moreover, social networks are also used to explore the nexus between the Internet and organic fertilizer application. The findings reveal that social networks favorably play the mediating role. The overall results propose that policymakers should establish the Internet infrastructure and an official online platform to help farmers consolidate and extend the scale of their social networks and exchange information more conveniently to improve their ability to apply environment-friendly production technology.

Keywords: Internet use; organic fertilizer application; propensity score matching (PSM) method; mediating effect model; farmer (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q15 Q2 Q24 Q28 Q5 R14 R52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/11/9/1601/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/11/9/1601/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jlands:v:11:y:2022:i:9:p:1601-:d:918003

Access Statistics for this article

Land is currently edited by Ms. Carol Ma

More articles in Land from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().