IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jagris/v13y2023i12p2268-d1299190.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Drivers for the Adoption of Organic Farming: Evidence from an Analysis of Chinese Farmers

Author

Listed:
  • Maosen Xia

    (School of Business, Hunan Agricultural University, Changsha 410128, China)

  • Pingan Xiang

    (School of Business, Hunan Agricultural University, Changsha 410128, China)

  • Guo Mei

    (School of Business, Hunan Agricultural University, Changsha 410128, China)

  • Zhizhen Liu

    (School of Business, Hunan Agricultural University, Changsha 410128, China)

Abstract

Adoption decision is an important topic in organic farming research. In order to understand farmers’ decision-making, it is necessary to delve into the factors influencing their behavior. Some studies have used social psychology models to explore the adoption intention of farmers in specific locations regarding organic farming, but there is a lack of investigation into the differences in driving factors for adoption intention among farmers in the pre-organic conversion (conventional), mid-conversion (conversion), and post-conversion (certified) stages, as well as the examination of the relationship between intention and behavior. This study aims to address this issue by examining the driving factors of Chinese farmers’ adoption of organic farming practices. We established a theoretical framework based on the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) and applied Partial Least Squares–Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) to analyze intention data collected from 432 farmers and behavior data collected one year later. The study found that attitude, perceived behavioral control, subjective norms, and descriptive norms positively drive the intention to adopt organic farming. In addition to intention being a determinant of behavior, farm size also positively influences behavior. The strength of the impacts of subjective norms on intention and farm size on behavior differs between conventional farmers and conversion farmers. The common driving chain of “attitude → intention → behavior” exists in the organic adoption decision of conventional, conversion, and certified farmers. Our findings suggest that the public sector can attract conventional farmers to transition to organic and stabilize existing practitioners of organic agriculture practices by considering the differences in driving factors when formulating intervention policies.

Suggested Citation

  • Maosen Xia & Pingan Xiang & Guo Mei & Zhizhen Liu, 2023. "Drivers for the Adoption of Organic Farming: Evidence from an Analysis of Chinese Farmers," Agriculture, MDPI, vol. 13(12), pages 1-17, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jagris:v:13:y:2023:i:12:p:2268-:d:1299190
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/13/12/2268/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/13/12/2268/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. John Fairweather, 1999. "Understanding how farmers choose between organic and conventional production: Results from New Zealand and policy implications," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 16(1), pages 51-63, March.
    2. KS Pietola & AO Lansink, 2001. "Farmer response to policies promoting organic farming technologies in Finland," European Review of Agricultural Economics, Oxford University Press and the European Agricultural and Applied Economics Publications Foundation, vol. 28(1), pages 1-15, March.
    3. Masoud Yazdanpanah & Maryam Tajeri Moghadam & Farhad Javan & Mojtaba Deghanpour & Stefan Sieber & Peyman Falsafi, 2022. "How rationality, morality, and fear shape willingness to carry out organic crop cultivation: a case study of farmers in southwestern Iran," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 24(2), pages 2145-2163, February.
    4. Andow, D.A. & Resende Filho, M.A. & Carneiro, R.G. & Lorena, D.R. & Sujii, E.R. & Alves, R.T., 2017. "Heterogeneity in Intention to Adopt Organic Strawberry Production Practices Among Producers in the Federal District, Brazil," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 140(C), pages 177-189.
    5. Kaufmann, Peter & Stagl, Sigrid & Franks, Daniel W., 2009. "Simulating the diffusion of organic farming practices in two New EU Member States," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(10), pages 2580-2593, August.
    6. Qiao, Yuhui & Martin, Friederike & Cook, Seth & He, Xueqing & Halberg, Niels & Scott, Steffanie & Pan, Xihe, 2018. "Certified Organic Agriculture as an Alternative Livelihood Strategy for Small-scale Farmers in China: A Case Study in Wanzai County, Jiangxi Province," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 145(C), pages 301-307.
    7. Philippos Karipidis & Sotiria Karypidou, 2021. "Factors that Impact Farmers’ Organic Conversion Decisions," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(9), pages 1-24, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Andow, D.A. & Resende Filho, M.A. & Carneiro, R.G. & Lorena, D.R. & Sujii, E.R. & Alves, R.T., 2017. "Heterogeneity in Intention to Adopt Organic Strawberry Production Practices Among Producers in the Federal District, Brazil," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 140(C), pages 177-189.
    2. Bouali Guesmi & Teresa Serra & Amr Radwan & José María Gil, 2018. "Efficiency of Egyptian organic agriculture: A local maximum likelihood approach," Agribusiness, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 34(2), pages 441-455, March.
    3. Teresa Serra & David Zilberman & José M. Gil, 2008. "Differential uncertainties and risk attitudes between conventional and organic producers: the case of Spanish arable crop farmers," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 39(2), pages 219-229, September.
    4. Nguyen Cong Dinh & Takeshi Mizunoya & Vo Hoang Ha & Pham Xuan Hung & Nguyen Quang Tan & Le Thanh An, 2023. "Factors influencing farmer intentions to scale up organic rice farming: preliminary findings from the context of agricultural production in Central Vietnam," Asia-Pacific Journal of Regional Science, Springer, vol. 7(3), pages 749-774, September.
    5. Lu, Chen-Fu & Cheng, Chia-Yi, 2023. "Exploring the distribution of organic farming: Findings from certified rice in Taiwan," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 212(C).
    6. Guesmi, Bouali & Serra, Teresa & Radwan, Amr & Gil, José María, 2014. "Efficiency of Egyptian Organic Agriculture: a Local Maximum Likelihood Approach," 2014 International Congress, August 26-29, 2014, Ljubljana, Slovenia 183023, European Association of Agricultural Economists.
    7. José Luis Aleixandre & José Luis Aleixandre-Tudó & Máxima Bolaños-Pizarro & Rafael Aleixandre-Benavent, 2015. "Mapping the scientific research in organic farming: a bibliometric review," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 105(1), pages 295-309, October.
    8. Boun My, Kene & Nguyen-Van, Phu & Kim Cuong Pham, Thi & Stenger, Anne & Tiet, Tuyen & To-The, Nguyen, 2022. "Drivers of organic farming: Lab-in-the-field evidence of the role of social comparison and information nudge in networks in Vietnam," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 196(C).
    9. Ferto, Imre & Forgacs, Csaba, 2009. "Is organic farming a chance for family farms to survive?," 111th Seminar, June 26-27, 2009, Canterbury, UK 52862, European Association of Agricultural Economists.
    10. Chen-Fu Lu & Chia-Yi Cheng, 2019. "Impacts of Spatial Clusters on Certified Organic Farming in Taiwan," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(9), pages 1-13, May.
    11. Zein Kallas & Teresa Serra & José Maria Gil, 2010. "Farmers’ objectives as determinants of organic farming adoption: the case of Catalonian vineyard production," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 41(5), pages 409-423, September.
    12. Basnet, Shyam Kumar & Manevska-Tasevska, Gordana & Surry, Yves, 2018. "Explaining the Process for Conversion to Organic Dairy Farming in Sweden: An Alternative Modelling Approach," German Journal of Agricultural Economics, Humboldt-Universitaet zu Berlin, Department for Agricultural Economics, vol. 67(1), March.
    13. Władysława Łuczka & Sławomir Kalinowski, 2020. "Barriers to the Development of Organic Farming: A Polish Case Study," Agriculture, MDPI, vol. 10(11), pages 1-19, November.
    14. Cuong Le Van & Nguyen To The, 2019. "Farmers’ adoption of organic production," Asia-Pacific Journal of Regional Science, Springer, vol. 3(1), pages 33-59, February.
    15. Feinerman, Eli & Gardebroek, Cornelis, 2005. "Stimulating Organic Farming Via Public Services and an Auction-Based Subsidy," 2005 International Congress, August 23-27, 2005, Copenhagen, Denmark 24723, European Association of Agricultural Economists.
    16. Moritz Flubacher & George Sheldon & Adrian Müller, 2015. "Comparison of the Economic Performance between Organic and Conventional Dairy Farms in the Swiss Mountain Region Using Matching and Stochastic Frontier Analysis," Journal of Socio-Economics in Agriculture (Until 2015: Yearbook of Socioeconomics in Agriculture), Swiss Society for Agricultural Economics and Rural Sociology, vol. 7(1), pages 76-84.
    17. Wollni, Meike & Andersson, Camilla, 2014. "Spatial patterns of organic agriculture adoption: Evidence from Honduras," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 97(C), pages 120-128.
    18. Yu, Yanan & He, Yong & Zhao, Xuan, 2021. "Impact of demand information sharing on organic farming adoption: An evolutionary game approach," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 172(C).
    19. Li, Fuduo & Zhang, Kangjie & Ren, Jing & Yin, Changbin & Zhang, Yang & Nie, Jun, 2021. "Driving mechanism for farmers to adopt improved agricultural systems in China: The case of rice-green manure crops rotation system," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 192(C).
    20. Marie-Louise Risgaard & Pia Frederiksen & Pernille Kaltoft, 2007. "Socio-cultural processes behind the differential distribution of organic farming in Denmark: a case study," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 24(4), pages 445-459, December.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jagris:v:13:y:2023:i:12:p:2268-:d:1299190. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.