Can TikTok be a good way to extend the adoption of green control techniques? Evidence from rural China

ABSTRACT

In the context of agricultural digitalisation in China, TikTok is becoming widely popular in rural areas and a novel way for agricultural technology extension. Based on survey data on 770 rice and wheat farmers in Hubei and Henan provinces in China, the endogenous switching probit model was used to verify the influence of TikTok usage on the adoption of Green Control Techniques (GCT). We found that farmers’ adoption probability of GCT will be significantly increased by 9.3–11.8% with their use of TikTok to browse GCT content. This shows that TikTok is an effective way to extend GCT. Furthermore, TikTok can complement traditional offline training as a digital agriculture extension for small-scale, older, and non-plain-area farmers, who are often of unequal status and are unable to obtain government agricultural extension services. These findings evaluate the effectiveness of short video software as a digital agriculture extension platform, which contributes to the rapid and effective extension of GCT. It is suggested that more GCT online promotion platforms should be built and applied in China.

KEYWORDS:

• Green control techniques
• digital agriculture extension
• TikTok
• agricultural digitalisation
• China

JEL CLASSIFICATION:

• D21
• D13
• O13
• Q16
• Q55

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China [71933004; 71803145; 72203163], the Major Program of Philosophy and Social Sciences of the Ministry of Education of China [21JZD030], the Postdoctoral Research Foundation of China [2021m701339] , the Education Science Planning Project of Hubei Province [2022GB034], the Science and Technology Research Project of the Department of Education of Hubei Province [Q20221503], the Teaching Research Project of Wuhan Institute of Technology [X202039; X2017056], the Scientific Research Fund of Wuhan Institute of Technology [22QD45; K202241], and the Higher Education Research Project of Wuhan Institute of Technology [2022YB08].

Notes on contributors

Zhaoliang Li

Zhaoliang Li is an associate professor from School of Law and Business of Wuhan Institute of Technology, and a post doctor of Huazhong Agricultural University. He focused on the research of agricultural economic theory and policy as well as regional economics.

Yanzhong Huang

Yanzhong Huang is a lecturer from School of Law and Business of Wuhan Institute of Technology. He focused on the research of sustainable agriculture, green technology and agricultural extension.

Yurong Yang

Yurong Yang is a lecturer from School of Law and Business of Wuhan Institute of Technology. She focused on the research of pesticide reduction and agricultural policy evaluation.

Xiaomin Lai

Xiaomin Lai is a lecturer from School of Law and Business of Wuhan Institute of Technology. He focused on the research of technological innovation and agricultural policy evaluation.