The dual impacts of specialized agricultural services on pesticide application intensity: Evidence from China

Streamlining Pesticide Regulation Across International River Basins for Effective Transboundary Environmental Management

Pesticide standard values (PSVs) are critical for environmental management, environmental quality control, and remediation. Some countries or regions share river basins; however, their pesticide regulations are inconsistent, which could create a barrier to transboundary environmental management. To address this issue, we propose PSV scores for neighboring countries in order to promote pesticide regulatory harmonization within international river basins. Representative pesticides were selected to define PSV scores, including chemicals that are currently and historically widely used. Countries or regions from five international river basins were chosen for analysis: the Amazon, Mekong-Lancang, Rhine-Meuse, Danube, and Great Lakes. PSV scores were calculated for each of four environmental compartments: soil, surface freshwater, groundwater, and drinking water. The results revealed that current regulatory agencies lack PSVs of current used pesticides for surface freshwater. With the exception of the member states of the European Union and the Great Lakes states of the United States, the majority of basin countries or regions lack uniform pesticide regulations in environmental compartments to facilitate transboundary environmental management. In addition, PSVs have not been established for a large number of pesticides currently used in agriculture, which could lead to water contamination by pesticides used in upstream environmental compartments (e.g., croplands). Also, current PSVs do not align across environmental compartments, which could cause inter-environmental contamination by pesticides used in upstream compartments. In light of the fact that current river basins lack uniform pesticide regulations, the following recommendations are provided to promote transboundary environmental management: (1) river basin regions should collaborate on pesticide regulation establishment, (2) pesticide regulations should be aligned across environmental compartments, (3) current-use pesticides should receive more attention, and (4) quantitative approaches should be proposed for linking PSVs across environmental compartments. This study provides a regulatory tool to identify possible gaps in transboundary environmental management and improve the pesticide regulatory policies. It is expected to establish cooperation organizations to enhance regulatory communications and collaborations for transboundary environmental pesticide management.

The role of agricultural mechanization services in reducing pesticide input: promoting sustainable agriculture and public health

An increasing amount of pesticide input is posing a serious threat to the environment and public health. However, the quantitative analysis of the impact of agricultural mechanization services (AMS) on reducing pesticide input is not yet clear. In this study, the impact of AMS on pesticide input was estimated by using the Chinese Family Database and the endogenous switching regression model. Subsequently, testing the robustness of the model using the substitution variable method. The impact of AMS on different types of pesticides and the influence of farmers' choices of AMS on pesticide input under different terrain conditions and farm sizes were analyzed as well. The results demonstrate that AMS has a significant and negative impact on pesticide input, reducing pesticide expenditures by 56.08% for farmers who adopt AMS. For farmers who do not adopt AMS, adopting such services is assumed to reduce pesticide input by 14.97%. AMS can also reduce the use of insecticides and herbicides by over 54%. Compared to mountainous and hilly areas, AMS in plain areas increase the effectiveness of pesticide input reduction by 30.40%. Furthermore, small-scale farmers who adopt AMS can increase pesticide input reduction by 90 yuan/mu compared with large-scale farmers. Therefore, promoting the development of socialized AMS, strengthening AMS in mountainous and hilly areas, and expanding the scale of operation for small-scale farmers can help improve the effectiveness of pesticide input reduction. The results of this study can inform the development of strategies to reduce chemical pesticide use in agricultural soil.

Consumer Awareness and Health Risk Perceptions of Pesticide Residues in Fruits and Vegetables in Kampala Metropolitan Area in Uganda

Consumer awareness of the presence of pesticides in fruits and vegetables and associated health risks influences the actions they undertake to reduce their exposure. This study was carried out to explore consumers' awareness of pesticide residues in fruits and vegetables and perceptions towards associated health effects in Kampala Metropolitan Area (KMA) in Uganda. Eight focus group discussions (FGDs) were done with fruit and vegetables consumers in KMA. The FGDs consisted of females and males living in urban and rural areas. Discussions were recorded and transcribed. The transcripts were coded inductively and analysed using conventional content analysis. Consumers were aware of the presence of pesticide residues in fruits and vegetables. Non-compliance to good agricultural practices, desire to produce good quality fruits and vegetables, and conflict of interest were thought to be the underlying reasons for the contamination. Consumers thought that their health is at risk of chronic and acute health effects, and that this risk is unavoidable. They emphasized that long term exposure to the pesticide residues puts them at risk of conditions like reproductive defects and noncommunicable diseases like cancer, hypertension, obesity, kidney and heart diseases among others. To reduce the risk, consumers were aware of and relied on mitigation measures including washing, peeling, drying and cooking or applied them in combination. Consumers were aware of the presence of pesticide residues on fruits and vegetables, potential short and long term health risks due to exposure, and domestic processing methods to reduce health risks. There is need for authorities to ensure adherence to good agricultural practices and ensure that farmers and consumers understand that pesticide are used to control pests and disease but not to primarily increase shelf life of fruits and vegetables.

Study on the influence mechanism of adoption of smart agriculture technology behavior

Smart agricultural (SA) technology has become a technological support for modern agriculture. By exploring the decision-making process and psychological motivation of farmers in adopting SA technology, it is conducive to achieving the popularisation of SA technology and promoting the modernisation of agriculture. Based on microscopic research data, a Structural Equation Model (SEM) is used to analyse the influencing factors and extent of cotton farmers' adoption of SA technologies, using Deconstructive Theory of Planned Behavior (DTPB) as the analytical framework. This was combined with in-depth interviews to further reveal the motivations and influencing mechanisms of cotton farmers' adoption of SA technologies. The results show that under the behavioural belief dimension, cotton farmers value the positive effect of perceived usefulness even though the risk of the technology itself has a dampening effect on adoption intentions. Under the normative belief dimension, superior influence influenced the willingness to adopt SA technologies to a greater extent than peer influence. Under the control belief dimension, factors such as self-efficacy and information channels influence willingness to adopt technology and behaviour. In addition, behavioural attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived behavioural control all contribute to cotton farmers' willingness to adopt SA technologies, and can also influence behaviour directly or indirectly through willingness to adopt. Policy and technology satisfaction positively moderate the transition from willingness to behaviour. Therefore, preferential policies are proposed to reduce the cost of adopting SA technologies; to continuously improve the level of SA technologies; to establish SA technology test plots to provide a reference base; and to increase knowledge training on SA and expand access to information.

How Does Agricultural Mechanization Service Affect Agricultural Green Transformation in China?

Agricultural mechanization service (AMS) is a critical path to achieving agricultural green transformation with smallholders as the mainstay of agricultural production. Based on the panel data of 30 Chinese provinces from 2011 to 2020, this paper measures the AGTFP using the Super-SBM model and examines the effects of different AMS supply agents on AGTFP and spatial spillover effects through the spatial Durbin model. The main conclusions are as follows: First, China's AGTFP showed a stable growth trend, with the mean value increasing from 0.1990 in 2011 to 0.5590 in 2020. Second, the specialization (SPO) and large-scale (LSO) of AMS supply organizations have significantly positive effect on the AGTFP of the local province. However, SPO has a significantly positive effect on the AGTFP of the neighboring provinces, while LSO has the opposite effect. Third, the specialization of AMS supply individuals (SPI) has significantly negative effect on the AGTFP of the local province. In contrast, the large-scale AMS supply individuals (LSI) has the opposite effect. Furthermore, the spatial spillover effects of both are insignificant. Fourth, the spatial spillover effect of AGTFP shows asymmetry among different regions and indicates that AMS resources flow from non-main grain production and economically developed regions to main grain production and less developed regions. These findings provide helpful policy references for constructing and improving the agricultural mechanization service system and realizing the agricultural green transformation in economies as the mainstay of agricultural production.