Family Identity, Place Identity, and Chinese Farmers’ Environment-Friendly Production Behavior

In response to the sustainable development goal of agriculture put forward by the United Nations, countries have introduced a series of agricultural environmental protection policies. However, the effectiveness of these policies has been hindered by insufficient responses from farmers. This study begins with the fundamental logic of farmers’ production behavior and first introduces family and place identities into the theoretical analysis framework of farmers’ environment-friendly production behavior (EPB). Using primary survey data for farmers from the northwestern Chinese province of Gansu, a hierarchical regression and simple slope analysis models were developed to verify how family and place identities affect farmers’ EPB. The potential moderating effect of place identity on the relationship between family identity and farmers’ EPB is further investigated. The results show that improving family identity has a significantly negative effect on farmers’ EPB, while improving place identity can significantly promote farmers’ EPB. Compared with respondents who have a low place identity, the inhibitory effect of family identity on farmers’ EPB is significantly weakened for those who have a high place identity, which suggests that farmers with a high place identity are more likely to engage in EPBs in agricultural production. This study highlights the importance of considering the economic logic toward maximizing family economic interests and the social logic oriented toward collective interests in the decision-making process of agricultural environmental policies.