EconPapers    
Economics at your fingertips  
 

Does it matter who gives information? The impact of information sources on farmers’ pesticide use in China

Dan Pan, Ning Zhang and Fanbin Kong

Journal of Asian Economics, 2021, vol. 76, issue C

Abstract: The timely delivery of scientific information regarding pesticide use to farmers is essential to address negative externalities. Farmers have four information sources regarding pesticide use in China: public agricultural extension agents (PAEAs), pesticide sellers, peer farmers, and farmers’ own experience. A better understanding of which information source is the most effective in reducing pesticide use would be a principal step toward designing policy strategies for sustainable agricultural production. In this study, we examine the relative effectiveness of each information source on farmers’ pesticide use, based on nationally representative data from 603 rice farmers in seven major rice-producing provinces in China. We adopt a multinomial endogenous switching regression model to correct for selection bias due to observed and unobserved factors. Results show that compared with farmers’ own experience, PAEAs significantly increase farmers’ pesticide expenditure by 8.7 %, while pesticide sellers and peer farmers significantly decrease farmers’ pesticide expenditure by 18.5 % and 10.1 % respectively, with the largest reduction coming from pesticide sellers. Discouraging PAEAs’ commercial activities, working with pesticide sellers, and using peer farmers as social multipliers to disseminate knowledge may be effective ways to develop education programs that aim to reduce pesticide use.

Keywords: Information source; Pesticide overuse; Agricultural extension system; Pesticide sellers; Multinomial endogenous switching regression (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (11)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1049007821000749
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

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:eee:asieco:v:76:y:2021:i:c:s1049007821000749

DOI: 10.1016/j.asieco.2021.101345

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Asian Economics is currently edited by C. Wiemer

More articles in Journal of Asian Economics from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().

 
Page updated 2025-03-19
Handle: RePEc:eee:asieco:v:76:y:2021:i:c:s1049007821000749