Influence Of Social Networks On Farmers' Safety Behaviors

Food safety is a major public health problem worldwide.The safety of agricultural products is the source of food safety,and it is also the fundamental guarantee for food safety.At present,in China,due to the various links in the production and operation process of farmers,the regional economic environment,and the residues of chemical fertilizers,pesticides,and hazardous substances,many agricultural safety incidents have been triggered.This has aroused great concern and widespread concern from all walks of life.Information asymmetry is considered to be an important cause of the frequent occurrence of quality and safety issues in agricultural products.Information asymmetry can easily lead to "moral hazard" and "adverse selection." Studies have shown that social networks have an important role in solving the problems caused by information asymmetry.Therefore,it is of theoretical and practical significance to analyze the social network's mechanism for the safe production behavior of rural households,to promote the development of the apple industry,to solve the quality and safety issues of agricultural products,and to improve people's quality of life and health.From the perspective of social networks,this paper,based on a systematic review of relevant domestic and foreign research results,and based on the guidance of multi-dimensional theoretical systems such as social capital theory,farmer behavior decision theory,and information asymmetry theory,builds the social network's impact on the safe production behavior of rural households.The theoretical framework;the use of field survey data and data from 1086 apple growers in four major Chinese apple producing areas(the Bohai Bay and the Loess Plateau dominant areas)to provide an in-depth analysis of the status and problems of safe production of apple growers;and use factor analysis to measure Social network and farmer household safety production behavior are two major indicators.Then,the structural equation model is used to further explore the social network's mechanism of action on farmer households' safety production behavior.Based on theoretical analysis results and empirical test results,relevant policy recommendations for promoting farmer household safety production enthusiasm are proposed.The main findings of this paper are as follows:(1)The four dimensions of social networks are: interaction frequency,trust,dependence,and network centricity.The interaction frequency has a significant positive effect on the safety production behavior of farmers;the degree of trust has a significant positive effect on the safety production behavior of farmers;the degree of dependence has no significant effect on the safety production behavior of farmers;the network-centricity is a safe production behavior of farmers.Has a significant positive effect.(2)Subdividing the interaction frequency and trust into two-dimensional variables,namely the frequency of interactions with agricultural retailers and the frequency of interactions with Apple's acquirers,the trust of agricultural retailers,and the degree of trust.The higher the frequency of interactions with agricultural retailers,the more farmers tend to be safe in production;the higher the degree of trust in Apple acquirers,the more likely farmers are to produce safely.Therefore,the government should commit itself to the construction of rural household social networks,attach importance to the construction of rural informatization,promote the exchange of farmer households with regular large-scale agricultural capital enterprises,and expand the sales channel of farmers' safe agricultural products,which is of great significance for farmers to choose safe production.