Do digital agricultural technology extension services promote the adoption of organomineral fertilizer use? Evidence from China

Highlights

	● Indiscriminate use of mineral fertilizers poses a significant threat to China’s implementation of UN Sustainable Development Goal 2 (SDG-2).
	● Farmers who use the digital agricultural technology extension services (DATES) had a 7.2%–10.2% increase in the probability of adopting organomineral fertilizer (OMF).
	● DATES enhanced OMF adoption through benefit-cognitive effects and transaction-cost effects.
	● Heterogeneity analysis indicated that DATES had a substantial influence on farmers with higher social capital and elevated economic status.

Abstract

The development of Internet information technology has given digital agricultural technology extension services advantages over earlier agricultural technology extension models, rendering them more conducive to the pursuit of sustainable and environmentally friendly agricultural development. This study leveraged survey data from 1167 farmers in Shaanxi and Gansu Provinces and used the propensity score matching method to elucidate the impact and mechanism of the digital agricultural technology extension service on the adoption of organomineral fertilizer. The results indicate that farmers who had used digital agricultural technology extension services had a 7.2% to 10.2% increase in the probability of adopting organomineral fertilizer compared with their non-user counterparts. In addition, adoption intensity increased from 7.0% to 9.9%. Secondly, digital agricultural technology extension services indirectly influence farmer adoption behavior by shaping their perceptions of benefits and reducing transaction costs. Also, this study examined the heterogeneity in the adoption of organomineral fertilizer facilitated by digital agricultural technology extension services. The findings of this study provide policy recommendations for advancing the use of digital agricultural technology extension services and enhancing organomineral fertilize adoption rates of farmers.

Graphical abstract

Keywords

Digital agricultural technology extension services / farmer perceptions / organomineral fertilizer

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Supplementary materials

The online version of this article at https://doi.org/10.15302/J-FASE-2024590 contains supplementary material (Table S1).

Acknowledgements

This research was funded by the National Social Science Foundation of China (22&ZD083). The authors a grateful for the funded project for providing material for this research, and the anonymous reviewers and editors for their helpful review and critical comments.

Compliance with ethics guidelines

Xinyi Ning, Yihan Chen, and Minjuan Zhao declare that they have no conflicts of interest or financial conflicts to disclose. All applicable institutional and national guidelines for the care and use of animals were followed.

RIGHTS & PERMISSIONS

The Author(s) 2024. Published by Higher Education Press. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0)