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Attribution and causal mechanism of farmers’ willingness to prevent pollution from livestock and poultry breeding in coastal areas

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Abstract

Farmers’ willingness to prevent pollution is a fundamental factor in taking measures to improve the operation and management of smallholder livestock and poultry breeding (LPB) in coastal areas. Multi-dimensional measurement and attribution of farmers’ willingness will play a key role in promoting the sustainable development of LPB and related policy-making. In this study, a total of 121 survey questionnaires of the LPB farmers in coastal areas were distributed and collected. Additionally, a structural equation model was adopted to analyse the driving factors and causal mechanism of farmers’ willingness to prevent LPB pollution. The results showed that: (1) individual characteristics, environmental risk perception, health risk perception and government policy perception overall have significant and positive influences on farmers’ willingness; (2) health risk perception is over the economic factors, being the most important factor influencing the level of farmers’ willingness to prevent LPB pollution overall: it will be increased by 0.46% if health risk perception is increased by 1%; (3) two main causal paths influencing farmers’ willingness have been determined: (1) the perception of farmers’ changes in own body health and daily life caused by the LPB → health risk perception → farmers’ willingness to prevent the LPB pollution; (2) the perception of water pollution caused by the LPB → environmental risk perception → health risk perception → farmers’ willingness to prevent the LPB pollution. Therefore, acquisition of health and environmental knowledge via social training plays a dominant role in rising the LPB farmers’ willingness.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Qiang Li, Wengchao Wang, Wenhui Yang, Chenxin Zou, Dongping Zhao, Yanqing Zhao, Fengwei Yuan, Huan Wang and Chunlin Zhang for participating in the farmers’ survey and data processing.

Funding

This research was supported financially by the Ministry of Education of Humanities and Social Science project (No. 17YJCZH085); the National Science Foundation of China (No. 41701371); the University Science Research Project of Jiangsu Province (No. 17KJB170006); the Priority Academic Programme Development of Jiangsu Higher Education Institutions and the Dragon 5 Programme (ID. 59197).

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  1. School of Geography, Geomatics, and Planning, Jiangsu Normal University, No.101 Shanghai Road, Tongshan District, Xuzhou City, 221116, Jiangsu Province, People’s Republic of China

    Jianguo Li, Xinyue Xu & Lili Liu

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  1. Jianguo Li
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Li, J., Xu, X. & Liu, L. Attribution and causal mechanism of farmers’ willingness to prevent pollution from livestock and poultry breeding in coastal areas. Environ Dev Sustain 23, 7193–7211 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10668-020-00911-x

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