| China’s agricultural production is the second source of greenhouse gas emissions after the industrial sector,and the emissions show a growing trend.This increase in greenhouse gas emissions caused by human factors has become an important driver of global climate change,resulting in increasingly prominent negative effects,and also caused serious harm to agricultural products’ production and quality.Reducing carbon emissions in agriculture has become an urgent problem.Low-carbon agriculture has an important potential of carbon emission reduction.Farmland is the most basic carrier of agricultural production,and farmers are the main force of the use of cultivated land.Low-carbon utilization of farmland by farmers is an important part of low-carbon agriculture.Although the government has introduced a series of measures to guide farmers to carry out low-carbon production,the production mode of high pollution,high energy consumption and high carbon emissions has not been effectively reversed.Changing the existing unreasonable farmland use mode and promoting the low carbon utilization of farmland,which is not only the inevitable choice to coordinate climate change and stabilize the healthy development of agriculture,but also an important way to the construction of ecological civilization in the agricultural field.In this context,how to effectively promote the low carbon use of farmers’ cultivated land has become the purpose of this paper.Farmers are the direct subjects of low-carbon agricultural production,and their behavior decisions directly will affect the implementation and effectiveness of agricultural carbon emission reduction policies.Based on the profound analysis of the cognitive theory of sociology and the environmental regulation,this study constructs the index system and framework of farmers’ cognition about farmland low carbon utilization,and analyzes the influencing factors of farmers’ behavior decision-making.Using the micro-survey data of458 farmer households in Hubei Province.Taking farmers’ farmland low-carbon utilization perception as the main variable,it is divided into three cognitive dimensions:farmers’ farmland low-carbon utilization benefit perception,self-efficacy perception,and external natural environment perception.Based on the analysis of farmers’ cognitive characteristics,this paper uses structural equation model to analyze the impact of three dimensions of farmers’ cognition on low-carbon use behavior of cultivated land.Taking into account the impact of environmental regulations,an external contextual element,on farmers’ “cognition-behavior”,this paper analyzes the regulatory effect of environmental regulations on the cognitive and behavioral decision-making of farmers on low carbon use of cultivated land,and explores the internal logic of farmers’ low carbon use of cultivated land from the internal and external perspectives.The main research conclusions are as follows:(1)The cognition of low carbon utilization of cultivated land can be divided into three dimensions: benefit cognition,self-efficacy cognition and external natural environment cognition.Among them,benefit cognition can be represented by three observation variables of economy,ecology and quality benefit cognition;self-efficacy cognition can be represented by three observation variables of economic endurance,risk endurance and resource availability;external natural environment cognition can be expressed by three significant variables: farmers’ cognition of agricultural production ecological environment problems,cognition of water source impact of chemical fertilizer and pesticide use,and cognition of atmospheric impact of agricultural film straw combustion.Generally speaking,the three dimensions of farmers have higher cognition,but there is still a phenomenon of incomplete cognition.In terms of benefit cognition,farmers have the highest cognition of quality and benefit brought by cultivated land utilization;in the self-efficacy cognition of farmers,farmers have the highest awareness of the availability of low-carbon production resources;in the cognition of the external natural environment of low-carbon utilization of farmers,farmers have higher awareness of environmental pollution caused by chemical fertilizer pesticide and straw film combustion.In terms of different differentiation types of farmers’ cognition,the cognition of the dual industry household is higher than that of the pure peasant households in the three dimensions of the cognition of low carbon utilization of cultivated land.(2)The decision-making of low carbon utilization of farmland of farmers follows the basic path of "cognition-behavior".The three dimensions of the psychological cognition of low carbon utilization of cultivated land have a significant positive effect on their behavior,and the coefficient of action path is 0.251,0.233 and 0.204 in turn.Among the three dimensions,the first factor to consider is the benefit cognition of low carbon utilization of cultivated land.For pure farmers,the cognition of the benefit of low carbon utilization of cultivated land has the greatest driving effect on their behavioral decisions.As far as type I farmers are concerned,self-efficacy cognition has the greatest influence on behavioral choice.For part-time type II farmers,behavioral benefit is the most important factor in deciding whether to implement low-carbon production.In addition,the impact of behavior decision is not significant in pure farmers group,which indicates that environmental perception is not the key to determine whether it is to conduct low-carbon production.(3)Environmental regulation policy has positive regulatory effect on cognition behavior decision of low carbon utilization of cultivated land.The government propaganda and regulation measures can promote the transformation of farmers’ cognition to behavior by increasing farmers’ benefit and environmental cognition.There is positive regulation effect in the cognition of low carbon utilization benefit of farmers’ cultivated land,cognition of external natural environment behavior decision;guiding regulation can positively regulate the cognitive and behavioral decision-making of farmers’ self-efficacy on low carbon utilization of cultivated land by improving their behavioral ability;restriction regulation can improve farmers’ cultivated land use self-efficacy cognition behavior decision;restriction regulation can promote the transformation of farmers’ cognition to behavior Low carbon utilization benefit cognition,self-efficacy cognition behavior decision have positive regulation effect.According to the above research conclusion,to promote the low-carbon production of farmers,on the one hand,we should improve the cognitive level of low-carbon utilization of cultivated land in multi-dimensional way,so that farmers can realize the technical cognition.On the other hand,we should highlight the role of formal systems in enhancing farmers’ participation in low-carbon production,pay attention to the comprehensive and balanced use of three regulatory means: publicity regulation,guidance regulation,and restraint regulation,and play the complementary mechanism of three means,through a variety of Means to “externalize” low-carbon production of farmers. |
