Does Digital Agricultural Technology Extension Service Enhance Sustainable Food Production? Evidence from Maize Farmers in China

Runqi Lun, Wei Liu, Guojing Li and Qiyou Luo ()
Additional contact information
Runqi Lun: Institute of Agricultural Resources and Regional Planning, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Beijing 100081, China
Wei Liu: China Mobile Group Design Institute Co., Ltd., Beijing 100083, China
Guojing Li: Institute of Agricultural Resources and Regional Planning, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Beijing 100081, China
Qiyou Luo: Institute of Agricultural Resources and Regional Planning, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Beijing 100081, China

Agriculture, 2024, vol. 14, issue 2, 1-23

Abstract: This research aims to investigate the average and heterogeneous impacts of digital agricultural technology extension service use on eco-efficiency among 1302 maize-producing farmers from a major maize-producing area in Northeast China in 2022. The slack-based measure model with undesirable outputs is applied to calculate the eco-efficiency of maize production. To obtain an unbiased estimation of the average effect, the self-selection problem generated by observable and unobservable factors is solved by the endogenous switching regression model. Quantile regression is utilized to analyze the heterogeneous effect. Notably, the mediated effects model is utilized to examine the potential mechanism between them. Our findings indicate that digital agricultural technology extension service use can increase maize production’s eco-efficiency. Digital agricultural technology extension service users would have reduced the eco-efficiency of the service by 0.148 (21.11%) if they had not used it. Digital agricultural technology extension service nonusers would have improved the eco-efficiency of the service by 0.214 (35.20%) if they had used it. The robustness check reconfirms the results. Moreover, digital agricultural technology extension service use is more helpful for maize farmers who have lower eco-efficiency than those who have higher eco-efficiency. Digital agricultural technology extension service use can improve the eco-efficiency of maize production through the application of organic fertilizers, green pesticides, and biodegradable agricultural films. There are policy implications of these findings: there is an argument for using the publicity of the digital agricultural technology extension service to encourage farmers to use sustainable inputs; additionally, it might be worthwhile to implement a categorized promotion strategy based on the different real-world situations.

Keywords: digital agricultural technology extension service; sustainable food production; eco-efficiency of maize production; endogenous switching regression; potential mechanism (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: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/14/2/292/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/14/2/292/ (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:14:y:2024:i:2:p:292-:d:1337202

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 ().