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Does off-farm employment contribute to chemical fertilizer reduction? New evidence from the main rice-producing area in Jilin Province, China

Frequent transfer of rural labor to cities in developing countries significantly impacts agricultural production. However, whether off-farm employment can promote chemical fertilizer (CF) reduction is still controversial. This study incorporates business scale (BS) and fragmentation degree of arable...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Lang, Yu, Wang, Guixia, Attipoe, Sonny Gad, Han, Dongxu
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9757570/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36525448
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0279194
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author Lang, Yu
Wang, Guixia
Attipoe, Sonny Gad
Han, Dongxu
author_facet Lang, Yu
Wang, Guixia
Attipoe, Sonny Gad
Han, Dongxu
author_sort Lang, Yu
collection PubMed
description Frequent transfer of rural labor to cities in developing countries significantly impacts agricultural production. However, whether off-farm employment can promote chemical fertilizer (CF) reduction is still controversial. This study incorporates business scale (BS) and fragmentation degree of arable land (FDAL) into the theoretical analysis framework, shedding light on regulating effects of arable land resource endowment in the process of off-farm employment which influences CF application under different BS and FDAL scenarios. It also empirically tests the theoretical framework by employing the survey data of 318 rice farmers in Jilin Province. The results indicate that: (1) off-farm employment, in general, promotes the adoption behavior of machinery by farmers, and mechanical tillage can significantly reduce the intensity of CF application. (2) If farmers have large BS and non-dispersed farmland parcels, contiguous cultivation will meet the scale threshold for mechanical farming and obtain economies of scale to reduce the intensity of CF application. (3) If farmers have small BS and dispersed farmland parcels, the scale threshold of mechanical farming cannot be met. In order to stabilize agricultural production, farmers will increase the intensity of CF application. According to the empirical results, we put forward some suggestions.
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spelling pubmed-97575702022-12-17 Does off-farm employment contribute to chemical fertilizer reduction? New evidence from the main rice-producing area in Jilin Province, China Lang, Yu Wang, Guixia Attipoe, Sonny Gad Han, Dongxu PLoS One Research Article Frequent transfer of rural labor to cities in developing countries significantly impacts agricultural production. However, whether off-farm employment can promote chemical fertilizer (CF) reduction is still controversial. This study incorporates business scale (BS) and fragmentation degree of arable land (FDAL) into the theoretical analysis framework, shedding light on regulating effects of arable land resource endowment in the process of off-farm employment which influences CF application under different BS and FDAL scenarios. It also empirically tests the theoretical framework by employing the survey data of 318 rice farmers in Jilin Province. The results indicate that: (1) off-farm employment, in general, promotes the adoption behavior of machinery by farmers, and mechanical tillage can significantly reduce the intensity of CF application. (2) If farmers have large BS and non-dispersed farmland parcels, contiguous cultivation will meet the scale threshold for mechanical farming and obtain economies of scale to reduce the intensity of CF application. (3) If farmers have small BS and dispersed farmland parcels, the scale threshold of mechanical farming cannot be met. In order to stabilize agricultural production, farmers will increase the intensity of CF application. According to the empirical results, we put forward some suggestions. Public Library of Science 2022-12-16 /pmc/articles/PMC9757570/ /pubmed/36525448 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0279194 Text en © 2022 Lang et al https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Lang, Yu
Wang, Guixia
Attipoe, Sonny Gad
Han, Dongxu
Does off-farm employment contribute to chemical fertilizer reduction? New evidence from the main rice-producing area in Jilin Province, China
title Does off-farm employment contribute to chemical fertilizer reduction? New evidence from the main rice-producing area in Jilin Province, China
title_full Does off-farm employment contribute to chemical fertilizer reduction? New evidence from the main rice-producing area in Jilin Province, China
title_fullStr Does off-farm employment contribute to chemical fertilizer reduction? New evidence from the main rice-producing area in Jilin Province, China
title_full_unstemmed Does off-farm employment contribute to chemical fertilizer reduction? New evidence from the main rice-producing area in Jilin Province, China
title_short Does off-farm employment contribute to chemical fertilizer reduction? New evidence from the main rice-producing area in Jilin Province, China
title_sort does off-farm employment contribute to chemical fertilizer reduction? new evidence from the main rice-producing area in jilin province, china
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9757570/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36525448
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0279194
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