Do Cooperatives Affect Groundwater Protection? Evidence from Rural China

Xin Deng, Lingzhi Zhang, Rong Xu, Miao Zeng, Qiang He, Dingde Xu and Yanbin Qi
Additional contact information
Xin Deng: College of Economics, Sichuan Agricultural University, Chengdu 611130, China
Lingzhi Zhang: College of Economics, Sichuan Agricultural University, Chengdu 611130, China
Rong Xu: College of Economics, Sichuan Agricultural University, Chengdu 611130, China
Miao Zeng: School of Economics, Sichuan University, Chengdu 610065, China
Qiang He: College of Economics, Sichuan Agricultural University, Chengdu 611130, China
Dingde Xu: College of Management, Sichuan Agricultural University, Chengdu 611130, China
Yanbin Qi: College of Economics, Sichuan Agricultural University, Chengdu 611130, China

Agriculture, 2022, vol. 12, issue 7, 1-14

Abstract: Groundwater protection is essential for global sustainable development. Due to the lack of motivation among farmers to build harmless disposal facilities for livestock excrement, there is a huge challenge surrounding groundwater protection, which also threatens the achievement of the UN Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 6: “clean water and sanitation”. Aiming to improve the groundwater protection behavior (GPB) of farmers, this study involved the following approach: (1) the use of rural China as a case area; (2) an exploration of the theoretical mechanisms and quantitative impacts of cooperatives as a way to encourage farmers to build harmless disposal facilities for livestock excrement; (3) a discussion about improvement strategies to increase the possibility of farmers building harmless disposal facilities for livestock excrement. The study highlighted the following findings: (1) compared to farmers who did not participate in cooperatives, farmers who were in cooperatives were 1.18% more likely to build harmless disposal facilities for livestock excrement; (2) compared to the basic scenario, the probability of farmers building harmless disposal facilities for livestock excrement could be increased by 50~1300%. The results of this study could help to provide a reference for the introduction of policies to protect groundwater, as well as an experiential reference for the achievement of the UN SDGs 3 and 6.

Keywords: cooperatives; groundwater protection behavior; cleaner production; sustainable development; rural China (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q1 Q10 Q11 Q12 Q13 Q14 Q15 Q16 Q17 Q18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/12/7/1016/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/12/7/1016/ (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:jagris:v:12:y:2022:i:7:p:1016-:d:862114

Access Statistics for this article

Agriculture is currently edited by Ms. Leda Xuan

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