Liu, Z.; Qi, Z.; Tian, Q.; Clark, J.S.; Zhang, Z. The Impact of Digital Finance on Farmers’ Adoption of Eco-Agricultural Technology: Evidence from Rice-Crayfish Co-Cultivation Technology in China. Agriculture2024, 14, 611.
Liu, Z.; Qi, Z.; Tian, Q.; Clark, J.S.; Zhang, Z. The Impact of Digital Finance on Farmers’ Adoption of Eco-Agricultural Technology: Evidence from Rice-Crayfish Co-Cultivation Technology in China. Agriculture 2024, 14, 611.
Liu, Z.; Qi, Z.; Tian, Q.; Clark, J.S.; Zhang, Z. The Impact of Digital Finance on Farmers’ Adoption of Eco-Agricultural Technology: Evidence from Rice-Crayfish Co-Cultivation Technology in China. Agriculture2024, 14, 611.
Liu, Z.; Qi, Z.; Tian, Q.; Clark, J.S.; Zhang, Z. The Impact of Digital Finance on Farmers’ Adoption of Eco-Agricultural Technology: Evidence from Rice-Crayfish Co-Cultivation Technology in China. Agriculture 2024, 14, 611.
Abstract
Eco-agricultural technology is crucial to alleviating agricultural resource scarcity and environ-mental pressures. However, financial constraint affects its successful promotion. Digital finance has a significant impact on farmers, but existing research lacks an exploration of the impact of digital finance on farmers' adoption of eco-agricultural technology. This study focuses on Rice–Crayfish Co-cultivation Technology as an example. It utilizes survey data from 1,063 households in China. An Endogenous Switching Probit model is employed to solve self-selection bias. The results reveal several key findings. First, the average treatment effect on the treated is 51.5%. This indicates that if farmers who use digital finance were to stop using it, the probability of adopting rice–crayfish co-cultivation technology would decrease by 51.5%. Therefore, digital finance is beneficial for farmers in adopting this technology. Second, heterogeneity analysis reveals that digital finance has a greater promoting effect on older farmers, those with lower education levels, and higher proportions of agricultural income. This suggests a greater reliance on digital financial services among vulnerable groups. Third, digital finance promotes farmers' adoption of rice–crayfish co-cultivation technology by alleviating financial constraints, expanding information channels, and increasing social capital accumulation. Overall, the findings offer valuable insights for for-mulating supportive policies.
Keywords
digital finance; rice-crayfish co-cultivation technology; financial constraint; information acqui-sition; social capital
Subject
Business, Economics and Management, Other
Copyright:
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
