Study On The Behavior Of Farmers In Circular Agriculture

The emergence of "petroleum agriculture" has greatly improved agricultural productivity and increases the supply of agricultural products since the 20th century; however, it also caused a series of environmental problems, such as the decline of soil quality, the water and air pollution, etc. Furthermore, one-way flow of material inputs has increased the consumption of natural resources and makes the already relatively scarce resources reserves in our country becoming more stretched. In order to solve the problems of resource waste and environmental pollution caused by the "petroleum agriculture", a new type of agricultural development model—circular agriculture comes into being, which is used to promote the efficient and recycling use of the agricultural resources, encourage cleaner production and save inputs, and advocate the reduction of environmental pollution and ecological damage as orientation. According to the Chinese conditions of household contract responsibility system and farmers decentralized management, the development of circular agriculture must fully relies on farmers. Whether fanners can play their leading role or how extent farmers can play, at the same time farmers’knowledge, attitude and behavior in the development of circular agriculture have important and far-reaching impact on the healthy and sustainable development of circular agriculture. In view of this, under the guidance of the theory of circular economy and farmers’behavior, motivation theory and game theory, the paper adopted the qualitative and quantitative analysis methods and the econometric analytical tools, made empirical study on the requirements of circular agriculture about the farmers’ behavior, combed the interest relationship among farmers, governments, enterprises and other related subjects, made identification of farmers’awareness, attitude and motivation of circular agriculture, conducted in-depth analysis on the farmers’behaviors of production inputs, waste disposal and technology selection and the main factors affecting farmers’ behaviors. On these bases, the paper gave the basic idea of improving the incentive and restraint mechanisms for farmers’participated in circular agriculture, putted forward the basic strategy to encourage farmers to participate in circular agriculture, aimed to promote the healthy, harmonious and sustainable development of circular agriculture. This paper drew the following conclusions by analyzing: (i) On the basis of combing the content of circular agriculture and summarizing the farmers’characteristics, the paper analyzed the mechanism of farmers’behavior, and putted forward the basic requirements of circular agriculture on farmers’behavior from four aspects:"active participated in construction of circular agriculture, reasonable reduced of production inputs, recycled of waste, wide applied of the related technology of circular agriculture". Through conducting the game analysis among farmers, government, business and other farmers, the paper found out the entry point for farmers to cooperate with the relevant subjects in circular agriculture.(ii) Through statistical and quantitative analyzed of sample data, the paper concluded that farmers’level of awareness on circular agriculture is relatively low in our country, that 61.3 percent of the sample farmers knew nothing about circular agriculture; the educational level of policy makers in agricultural production, the number of rural associations and the amount of farmers’domestic waste emissions are the main factors affecting farmers’awareness; farmers take a relatively positive attitude towards circular agriculture, in which,82.6 percent of the farmers support the development of circular agriculture and 84.1 percent of the farmers have the willing to participate in the construction of circular agriculture; the empirical analysis showed that the awareness of farmers on high-quality agricultural products and the satisfaction of farmers with local water resources are the main factors affecting the farmers’attitude; "spontaneous demand" and "uniform implementation of the village" are the internal and external drivers of farmers’participation, respectively, in the construction of circular agriculture, while for the spontaneous demand of farmers, "facilitating family’s life" is the advantage driving force, and "improving the environment" and "increasing agricultural income" is the auxiliary driving force.(iii) The paper conducted empirical analysis on the farmers’production inputs behavior in circular agriculture by using the panel data and survey data. The analysis showed that the phenomenon of farmers’incremental use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides is quite common, in which,25.8 percent of farmers tend to incremental use pesticides,52.4 percent of farmers tend to incremental use chemical fertilizer; the proportion of farmers’using bio-pesticides, organic fertilizer and other pollution-free production is relatively low, only 44.6 percent of farmers used biological pesticide, only 59.6 percent of farmers used organic fertilizer. The estimation results of variable intercept fixed effects model and the binary logistic regression model showed that the main factors affecting production input behavior of farmers including four categories and eleven aspects, four categories are the farmers’ production practices, the production scale of farmers, the individual characteristics and the external environment of decision-makers in agricultural production.(iv) The empirical analysis showed that there is a relatively big gap between the status of farmers’ waste disposal behavior and the requirements of circular agriculture; farmers lack enough knowledge about the value of crop residues, pesticide packaging, agricultural film, garbage and domestic wastewater; the phenomenon of arbitrary waste disposal is relatively serious; the fanners’ performance of waste disposal behavior in undeveloped rural provinces is more irrational. The estimation results of Panel data model and the Logistic model showed that the main factors affecting waste disposal behavior of farmers including three categories: the individual characteristics of decision-makers in agricultural production, family’s situation of production and operation, the external environment; these categories are divided into six aspects which including the educational level and the degree of part-time of agricultural policy makers, the amount of household liquid waste, the farmers’ level of awareness on the impact of arbitrary waste disposal, the local traffic conditions, and the government funding for investment in rural energy.(v) Through the field survey, the paper found that fanners’ demand for technology in the circular agriculture is relatively strong; the seven kinds of technologies that farmers needed most urgently in the development of circular agriculture are the planting picked seeds, efficient pesticides and pest controlling technology, digester constructing technology, straw treatment technology, scientific fertilization and livestock cultivation. By constructed and estimated two types of multiple logistic regression model, the paper concluded that the factors affect agricultural technical requirement including: the educational level and the degree of part-time of agricultural policy makers, the farmers’ awareness of circular agriculture, the farmers’ awareness of quality agricultural products, and the factors affect technology selection behavior of farmers including: the gender and educational level of agricultural policy makers, the household’s per capita net income of agricultural policy makers, the intensity of government technical support and the farmers’ awareness on circular agriculture.(vi) Based on the conclusions of theoretical and empirical analysis, this paper improved the incentive and restraint mechanisms that stimulate farmers to develop circular agriculture; the incentive mechanism including legislative support, credit support, financial support, tax support and technology support, etc; the restraint mechanism includes legally binding, social constraints and economic constraints, etc. On this basis, the paper proposed the basic strategy inducing farmers to participate in the development of circular agriculture; these basic strategies include:correctly positioning the fanners’ role in construction of circular agriculture, making efforts to improve farmers’awareness in circular agriculture, feasibly strengthening the technology training for farmers, and effective encouraging and regulating farmers’behavior in circular agriculture.The innovation of this paper has three points as follows:(i) This paper made the first systematic presentation of the behavioral requirements on farmers in the development of circular agriculture. Currently, farmers’ behavioral requirements are almost not invovled in the researches made on the farmers’ behavior of circular agriculture, only referred in the literature sporadically and indirectly, not deep enough and lack of systematic. On the basis of in-depth study on the content of circular agriculture and characteristics of farmers in our country, this article made the first systematic presentation of the behavioral requirements on farmers in development of circular agriculture from the perspective of the attitude, production investment behavior, waste management behavior and technology choice behavior of farmers. This innovation points have great significance for the acceleration of the healthy development of circular agriculture and the full play to the leading role of farmers. At the same time, the paper took the fanners’behavioral requirements as the scale, and measured the gap between present situation and the ideal state of farmers’ behavior in circular agriculture, laid the theoretical foundation for the design of farmers’behavior incentive and restraint mechanisms.(ii) The paper designed the incentive and restraint mechanisms of the farmers’ participation in the development of circular agriculture. Current study on the farmers’ behavior of circular agriculture is insufficient on the issue of famer’s incentive and restraint mechanisms, and lack of convincing research results. In this regard, based on the normative analysis and empirical analysis of the farmers’behavioral mechanism and farmers’knowledge, attitude, motivation and behavior, this paper designed a set of incentive and restraint mechanisms to encourage farmers to develop circular agriculture. In the respect of incentive mechanism, farmers should be given the support from legislation, credit, financial, tax, science and technology, and other aspects; in the respect of constraint mechanism, farmers’ behavior should be regulated by the aspects of legal sanctions, economic sanctions, as well as social and moral constraints. The sound incentive and restraint mechanisms are not only a necessary institutional factor to promote the healthy development of circular agriculture, but also an important means to give full play to the leading role of farmers. The incentive and restraint mechanisms of farmers’ behavior designed in the article can be regarded as an innovation in theoretical sense, and can also be seen as a bold attempt in the research field of circular agriculture,(ⅲ) This paper made some valuable research findings. The paper reached a series of conclusions from the systematic analysis, such as that farmers have lower level of knowledge on circular agriculture, and take a more positive attitude toward the development of circular agriculture, "spontaneous demand" is the main driving force of farmers’ participation in circular agriculture, farmers production inputs behavior in circular agriculture has yet to be standardized, there is a big gap between the farmers’ waste disposal behavior status and behavioral requirements of farmers, the technology needs of farmers in circular agriculture is relatively strong, the main factors affecting waste disposal behavior of farmers including three aspects:the individual characteristics of decision-makers in agricultural production, family’s situation of production and operation and the external environment, etc. These conclusions have some theoretical and practical value in encouraging and regulating the farmers’ behavior and fully displaying farmers’ role in circular agriculture.