Adoption of multiple sustainable agricultural practices among farmers in northwest, China

Figures & data

Figure 1. Research hypothesis.

Figure 2. Map showing the geographical location of studied counties and the respective areas covered in the data collection.

Table 1. Definitions and excepted effect of explanatory variables included in the model.

Variables	Description	Expected effect
		AD	AI
Dependent variables
Adoption decision (AD)	Whether to adopt any SAPs (1 = Yes, 0 = No)
Adoption intensity (AI)	Adoption intensity [from low intensity (1) to high intensity (4)].
Individual characteristics
Gender	Gender of respondent (1 = male, 0 = female)	+	+
Age	Age of respondent (years) (1 = under 30; 2 = 30–39; 3 = 40–49; 4 = 50–59; 5 = 60 and above)	±	±
Education	Education of respondent (1 = under primary school; 2 = primary school; 3 = middle school; 4 = high school; 5 = university and above)	+	+
Experience	Years of growing greenhouse vegetables (years)	±	±
Psychological characteristics
Risk attitude	Attitude toward the risk of adopting SAPs (1 = risk averter; 2 = risk neuter; 3 = risk taker)	+	+
Cognition of SAPs	Respondent knows SAPs well [5-point scale: from strongly disagree (1) to strongly agree (5)].	+	+
Perceived usefulness	Respondent perceives that SAPs are useful [5-point scale: from strongly disagree (1) to strongly agree (5)].	+	+
Household characteristics
Family size	Family size	±	±
Off-farm activity	1 = non-agricultural households with farm work; 2 = agricultural households with off-farm work; 3 = agricultural households with full-time farm work	±	±
Farm size	Total cultivated are (in mu, 1 mu = 0.067 ha) (1 = under 2; 2 = 2–4; 3 = 4–6; 4 = 6–8; 5 = 8 or above)	+	+
Plot fragmentation	Number of greenhouses	±	±
Geographical characteristics
Plot altitude	Altitude of the plot (in meters)	+	−
Town access	Driving distance to town (in kilometers)	−	−
Market access	Driving distance to the nearest wholesale market (in kilometers)	−	−
Government support
Policy subsidies	Household has obtained subsidies (1 = Yes; 0 = No)	+	+
Technical training	Household has attended free technical training (1 = Yes; 0 = No)	+	+
Service from ASTP	Household has accepted technical services from the Wuzhong ASTP (1 = Yes; 0 = No)	+	+
Access to credit	Difficulty for farmers to obtain credit [5-point scale: from big (1) to small (5)]	+	+
Social networks
Information channels	Number of channels for farmers to obtain information on SAPs	+	+
Strong ties contact	Frequency of strong ties contact [5-point scale: from strongly infrequent (1) to strongly frequent (5)]	+	+
Weak ties contact	Frequency of weak ties contact [5-point scale: from strongly infrequent (1) to strongly frequent (5)]	+	+

Table 2. Summary statistics of explanatory variables included in the model.

Variables	Whole sample				Adopter	Non-adopter	Mean diff
	Mean	SD	Min	Max	Mean	Mean
Individual characteristics
Gender	0.577	0.495	0	1	0.585	0.551	0.034
Age	3.474	0.943	1	5	3.488	3.428	0.061
Education	2.344	1.002	1	4	2.415	2.101	0.314***
Experience	9.322	5.388	1	26	9.263	9.522	−0.258
Psychological factors
Risk attitude	1.726	0.737	1	3	1.842	1.333	0.508***
Cognition of SAPs	3.691	1.037	1	5	3.824	3.239	0.585***
Perceived usefulness	3.853	1.263	1	5	3.891	3.725	0.166
Household characteristics
Family size	3.980	1.087	1	8	3.957	4.058	−0.101
off-farm activity	1.942	0.758	1	3	1.991	1.775	0.216***
Farm size	2.205	1.146	1	5	2.300	1.884	0.416***
Plot fragmentation	3.117	2.501	1	22	3.268	2.605	0.663***
Geographical characteristics
Plot altitude	1141	41.616	1088	1233	1140	1144	−4.011
Town access	5.589	3.320	0.380	16.510	5.427	6.138	−0.711**
Market access	10.858	7.183	1.830	32.900	10.332	12.640	−2.308***
Government support
Policy subsidies	0.855	0.353	0	1	0.923	0.623	0.300***
Technical training	0.666	0.472	0	1	0.728	0.457	0.272***
Service from ASTP	0.106	0.308	0	1	0.131	0.022	0.109***
Access to credit	2.704	1.335	1	5	2.979	1.775	1.203***
Social networks
Information channels	2.312	1.090	1	6	2.450	1.848	0.602***
Strong ties contact	3.145	1.145	1	5	3.287	2.667	0.620***
Weak ties contact	2.878	1.177	1	5	3.015	2.370	0.645***

diff = mean (Non-adopter) − mean (Adopter). H0: diff = 0; HA: diff ≠ 0. Significance: ***p < 0.01, **p < 0.05.

Figure 3. Distribution of adoption.

Table 3. Estimated results of Heckman two-stage model.

Variables	Adoption decision		Adoption intensity
	Coefficient	Std. Err	Coefficient	Std. Err
Individual characteristics
Gender	−0.1925	0.1564	−0.0.771	0.0643
Age	0.2461**	0.1058	0.1597***	0.0438
Education	0.1845*	0.0992	0.0968**	0.0401
Experience	−0.0333**	0.0154	−0.0260***	0.0067
Psychological factors
Risk attitude	0.2531*	0.1330	0.3191***	0.0469
Cognition of SAPs	0.2391***	0.0743	0.1205***	0.0338
Perceived usefulness	0.0320	0.0571	0.0213	0.0231
Household characteristics
Family size	−0.0632	0.0661	−0.0055	0.0281
Off-farm activity	0.0811	0.1239	0.1113**	0.0483
Farm size	0.2450**	0.1194	0.0351	0.0420
Plot fragmentation	0.0123	0.0495	−0.0078	0.0182
Geographical characteristics
Plot altitude	−0.0007	0.0019	−0.0002	0.0008
Town access	−0.0224	0.0252	−0.0191*	0.0112
Market access	−0.0230*	0.0119	−0.0120**	0.0052
Government support
Policy subsidies	0.8112***	0.1798	0.5864***	0.1339
Technical training	0.3322**	0.1605	0.1908**	0.0760
Service from ASTP	0.7249*	0.4212	0.3870***	0.0972
Access to credit	0.4561***	0.0701	0.1841***	0.0319
Social networks
Information channels	0.1002	0.0860	0.0860**	0.0305
Strong ties contact	0.1738**	0.0669	0.1898***	0.0303
Weak ties contact	0.0461	0.0698	0.0184	0.0289
Lambda	—	—	0.5331**	0.1915
_cons	−3.5502	2.2650	−1.5984*	0.9565
Rho	0.8359
Wald chi^2(24)	195.66
Prob > chi^2	0.0000

Significance: ***p < 0.01, **p < 0.05, *p < 0.1.