Formation Mechanism And Incentive Policy Of Rice Farmers’ Low-carbon Production Behavior In The Context Of Climate Change

Climate change has become a global environmental issue that restricts human society and economic development.It is also the most serious challenge that the world has faced with.As a staple food for more than 60% of the world’s population,rice has always occupied a core position in food crops and is an important guarantee for maintaining food security.However,rice production is one of the important sources of greenhouse gas emissions such as methane.Only the greenhouse gas emissions from rice cultivation account for more than 10% of the total global agricultural greenhouse gas emissions,of which the greenhouse gas emissions contribution from rice cultivation in China has reached 22%.Therefore,researching and advancing low-carbon rice production so as to achieve the goal of carbon reduction in agriculture has become an issue with important theoretical and practical significance.It is not only related to the sustainable development of agriculture,but also affects the harmonious development of the entire human society and the natural environment by maintaining food security and climate security.In China,farmers are the largest group who are most widely distributed,and the highest proportion of people who contract arable land.Naturally,they must be the most widely involved participants and the most important micro-foundation of low-carbon agricultural development.It can be seen that giving full play to the main role of the farmers should be as an indispensable and important link in promoting the low-carbon rice production process.In present period,soil carbon sequestration techniques such as no-tillage,straw returning to the field,and low-carbon agricultural resources like soil testing fertilizer,biological pesticides,as well as intermittent irrigation management have been gradually introduced into Chinese rural areas.However,the question is,why is there still a significant number of rice farmers who are unable or unwilling to implement low-carbon rice production? What are the in-depth factors affecting rice farmers’ implementation of low-carbon production practices in rice production? How to scientifically and reasonably guide and encourage rice farmers to actively participate in low-carbon rice production in order to achieve the goal of agricultural carbon reduction?This study takes “formation mechanism-empirical test-policy design” related to rice farmers’ low-carbon production behaviors as the logical main line.First,I systematically sorted out research frontiers and development trends in the research field at home and abroad and built the theoretical analysis framework on this basis;Secondly,I analyzed the development status of rice industry in Hubei Province,rice farmers’ perceptions and cognition of climate change,low-carbon production technology evaluation,risk attitudes and pre-entry participation status.Furthermore,the mechanism of low-carbon production behavior of rice farmers was deeply explored with the use of the Grounded Theory and Structural Equation Modelling.Finally,the intervention path of rice farmers’ low-carbon production behavior was analyzed theoretically,and the incentive policies and realization approaches for low-carbon production behaviors of rice farmers were put forward.Through the above system research,the main conclusions are as follows:(1)Under the background of climate change,low-carbon rice production is imperative.Rice farmers have a deep understanding of climate change,but their scientific perception of greenhouse gas and climate change causes is still at a fuzzy stage.Promotion efforts of low-carbon production need to be strengthened,such as building regional food cooperatives,encouraging villagers’ exchanges,training rice farmers in production,providing technical guidance,etc.(2)From the perspective of qualitative analysis,rice farmers’ low-carbon production attitude including perception of agricultural low-carbon production and of environmental protection and behavioral efficiency perception including value perception and self-efficacy as a pre-driver element determines their low-carbon production willingness,which in turn drives their low-carbon production behavior;at the same time,the cost of production implementation including traditional farming habits and risk tolerance as an internal context factor and social environment factors including the cultural background of small farmers,the government led promotion and the influence of group effect as an external context element,to a certain extent,regulate the relationship between rice farmers’ “intention → behavior” in low-carbon production.(3)From the perspective of quantitative analysis,rice farmers’ low-carbon production attitude and behavioral efficiency perception all have a significant impact on their actual behavior through the mediating effect of low-carbon production intentions;at the same time,their low-carbon production attitudes and behavioral efficacy perceptions can also directly affect their low-carbon production behavior;in addition,production implementation cost and social environmental factor have a certain regulatory effect on rice farmers’ behavior in low-carbon production.(4)For the rice farmers who are young and middle-aged,low educated,having no part-time job and short farming experience,and in poor health,the impact of environmental awareness on their low-carbon production behavior is relatively significant;for those who are old,having no part-time job and long farming experience,the impact of value perception on their low-carbon production behavior is relatively significant;for those who have long farming experience,the effect of self-efficacy on their low-carbon production behavior is relatively significant;for those who are young and middle-aged,highly educated,having part-time job and short farming experience,in good health,the low-carbon production intention has a relatively significant impact on their low-carbon production behavior.(5)To promote effective policies to encourage rice farmers to participate in low-carbon production should in line with combining technical supply with actual needs,coordinating government guidance and organization promotion and balancing comprehensive planning and pilot integration so as to strengthen publicity and education,to promote technology innovation,to enrich the main body of promotion,to implement subsidy mechanism,to facilitate large-scale operations,to establish low-carbon labeling and to promote the establishment of guidance and cooperation between governments,cooperatives,planters,and ordinary farmers.Thus,the two systems,namely “agricultural production” and “environmental protection” could be scientifically coordinated and integrated and rice-farmers’ adoption of low-carbon production technologies and management measures could be accelerated to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from agricultural sources,and then the dual goals of food security and climate security could be ultimately realized,in order to achieve the harmonious development of human society and the natural environment.The possible innovations of this study are mainly reflected in three aspects:(1)Many literature have discussed the impact of climate change on rice production,and the carbon emission effects of specific measures in the process of rice production.However,few of them has analyzed the coupling relationship between climate change and rice production.The purpose of this study is to explore the causal relationship and feedback path between rice and climate change based on the system dynamics model and VENSIM-PLE software so as to reveal the interaction mechanism between rice production and climate change and its inherent rule.At the same time,we simulated the trend of rice production carbon emissions under different development models through system simulation,and discussed the necessity of low-carbon rice production under the background of climate change.(2)At present,quantitative analysis on farmers’ low carbon production behavior is mostly related to a generally behavior theoretical model,and in-depth qualitative and quantitative analysis on theoretically exploring the formation mechanism of farmers’ specific low-carbon behaviors in rice production is quite deficient.From the perspective of behavioral psychology,it is based on the Grounded Theory that the formation mechanism model of rice farmers’ low-carbon production behavior is constructed,and that the deep-seated factors affecting the microscopic individuals’ behaviors in low-carbon production during the rice production process have been explored.This study provides a new vision to the analysis of rice farmers’ low-carbon production behavior with a now model,a novel path and a new method,which further promotes the theoretical research on the low carbon production behavior mechanism of rural households.(3)From the theoretical perspective,this study explores the effective ways and strategies for achieving low-carbon production interventions among rice farmers and reveals the impact paths and action principles of different types of intervention strategies as well as designing effectively incentive policies and implementation ways to encourage rice farmers to participate in low-carbon rice production.The purpose is to effectively and reasonably exert the role of microcosmic bodies in low-carbon rice production,and to effectively promote agricultural energy-saving and emission reduction,so as to make the results practical and operational,and to formulate relevant policies for low-carbon agriculture,thus providing theoretical basis to enrich and expand low-carbon agricultural theory.