The Effect of Information Acquisition Ability on Farmers’ Agricultural Productive Service Behavior: An Empirical Analysis of Corn Farmers in Northeast China

Shoumin Yue, Ying Xue (), Jie Lyu and Kangkang Wang
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Shoumin Yue: College of Economics and Management, Shenyang Agricultural University, Shenyang 110866, China
Ying Xue: College of Economics and Management, Shenyang Agricultural University, Shenyang 110866, China
Jie Lyu: College of Economics and Management, Shenyang Agricultural University, Shenyang 110866, China
Kangkang Wang: College of Economics and Management, Shenyang Agricultural University, Shenyang 110866, China

Agriculture, 2023, vol. 13, issue 3, 1-26

Abstract: Agricultural productive services are an important means to achieve effective allocation of regional resources and play an important role in ensuring food security and improving farmers’ welfare. However, the development process of agricultural productive services still faces problems such as large differences in service levels in different segments and low participation rates in the full service. In order to investigate the influential paths of the low participation rate of farmers in the full-service process, this study takes maize farmers in northeast China as the research object. Based on 937 survey data from six cities in three northeastern provinces, we used the Item Response Theory (IRT) model to measure farmers’ information acquisition ability and constructed the Heckman two-stage model and the IV-Heckman model to analyze the logical framework of “information acquisition ability—farmers’ choice of productive agricultural services”. The main findings are as follows: firstly, the more channels there are, the stronger the farmers’ channel internalities; the higher the degree of channel differentiation, the stronger the farmers’ channel internalities. Second, after addressing the sample selection bias and endogeneity, there is a small rise in the facilitation effect of information acquisition ability on farmers’ productive agricultural service behavior. Third, this facilitation effect is achieved through farmers’ perceived usefulness of productive agricultural services, and the mediating effect of perceived ease of use is not significant. Therefore, fostering farmers’ self-perceptions and optimizing information delivery strategies are effective ways to promote farmers’ choice of agricultural productive services and to facilitate the modernization of Chinese agriculture. In general, this study helps to reveal the theoretical mechanism of farmers’ information asymmetry, and provides empirical evidence for how to promote the development of agricultural productive services.

Keywords: information acquisition ability; perceived usefulness; agricultural productive services; Heckman (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: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)

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