Impacts of Incentive and Disincentive Mechanisms for Ensuring Environmentally Friendly Livestock Waste Management

SIMPLE SUMMARY: This study evaluated the impacts of incentive and disincentive mechanisms in ensuring environmentally friendly livestock waste management, drawing on a survey of 499 pig farmers from China. An assessment framework was developed and empirically tested using partial least squares structural equation modeling. The findings suggest incentives and disincentives can be effective in ensuring adoption of environmentally friendly livestock waste management practices. However, the disincentive mechanism demonstrated relatively lower interaction values than the incentive mechanism. The survey results indicated that discounts, subsidies, and training provision were the most impactful factors. In summary, the balance and interactions between incentives and disincentives need to be well-planned and managed to strengthen farmers’ adoption of environmentally friendly livestock waste management practices. ABSTRACT: Environmentally friendly waste management (EFWM) is a safer way of waste disposal that can foster a cleaner environment for both farms and their surroundings. It may lessen land, air, and water pollution, as well as moderate ecological footprints, and aid in sustainable agricultural development, which has become one of the major concerns of the modern era. To achieve these outcomes, incentives and control mechanisms initiated by the government may alter farmers’ behavior. The study involved a review of relevant literature and the conduct of interviews with 499 pig breeders to evaluate the impacts of government incentives and control mechanisms on fostering the adoption of environmentally friendly waste management practices by farmers. A theoretical framework based on existing studies is proposed, utilizing a structural equation modeling (SEM) approach to analyze the data and illustrate the relationships among incentives and control mechanisms. The results show that: (i) overall the impacts of incentive mechanisms were stronger and more effective than those of control mechanisms. Among them, subsidy policy and discount policy were the most influential for farmers’ adoption behavior. However, penalty and disincentive policy also impacted the outcome variables; (ii) a significant relationship was observed among regulatory, disincentive, and subsidy policies and a moderate relationship among penalty, insurance, and discount policies. However, bonus-community service and social critic policies did not show any significant relationship with any other variables. The research findings can assist the Chinese government in gaining a comprehensive understanding of the impacts of two crucial mechanisms and promoting the adoption of environmentally friendly practices by farmers. The government should highlight and strengthen the importance of social obligations and orientation, as well as providing monetary support at the rural level to improve farmers’ ability to adapt to environmentally friendly waste management practices.