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Farmers’ adoption behavior of conservation tillage technology: a multidimensional heterogeneity perspective

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Abstract

Adopting conservation tillage technology can promote sustainable agriculture development. There have been many studies on all farmers’ conservation tillage behaviors, but few studies are based on a farmer’s multidimensional heterogeneity perspective. Given the background, we conduct an empirical evaluation using micro survey data from 819 households in the middle and upper reaches of the Yellow River Basin. This paper uses the entropy method to classify farm households into three types: economically dominant, resource dominant, and socially dominant. Furthermore, we use the Heckman sample selection model to discuss the factors that affect the adoption of conservation tillage technology by different types of farmers. The results show that land fragmentation degree can inhibit economically dominant farmers conservation tillage technology adoption behavior. Social relations can positively influence resource dominant farmers. The share of non-farm income will positively impact socially dominant farmers. This paper further proposes policy implications, based on the findings that different types of farmers have various factors influencing conservation tillage technology adoption behavior.

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Data availability

The datasets used and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Notes

  1. Due to the data limitation, we did not include the lower reaches of Yellow River Basin in the study area.

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Funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 72173097), National Soft Science Project of State Forestry and Grassland Administration (No. 2019131039), National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 72141006), Soft Science Project of Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs (No. rkx20221101), the Key Special Funds of Ministry of Agriculture and Ministry of Finance (Grant No. CARS-07-F-1), the Key Think Tank Research Project of Philosophy and Social Science in Shaanxi Province (Grant No. 2021ZD1038), and Annual Project of Henan Provincial Philosophy and Social Science Planning (Grant No. 2022BJJ019).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Economics and Management, Northwest A&F University, 712100, Yangling Shaanxi, China

    Yujie Shen, Rui Shi, Ruirui Du & Minjuan Zhao

  2. School of Finance, Capital University of Economics and Business, Beijing, 100070, China

    Wenting Kong

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  1. Yujie Shen
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Contributions

Yujie Shen: conceptualization, formal analysis, methodology, investigation, writing—original draft. Wenting Kong: data curation and proofreading, methodology, writing—review, and editing. Rui Shi: formal analysis, manuscript editing. Ruirui Du: investigation, data curation, and proofreading. Minjuan Zhao: funding acquisition, project administration, and supervision.

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Correspondence to Minjuan Zhao.

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Shen, Y., Kong, W., Shi, R. et al. Farmers’ adoption behavior of conservation tillage technology: a multidimensional heterogeneity perspective. Environ Sci Pollut Res 30, 37744–37761 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-022-24716-9

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