The influence of smartphone use on conservation agricultural practice: Evidence from the extension of rice-green manure rotation system in China

Abstract

Although the impact of smartphone use has aroused widespread public interest, its effect on promoting conservation agriculture has never been revealed. We developed an integrated model to explain the scientific question of how smartphone use influence farmers' behavior of adopting a conservation agricultural practice-rice-green manure rotation system (RGRS). Based on a sample set containing 934 respondents, the causal chain was estimated by using the PLS-SEM with bootstrapping. The results showed that smartphone use directly contributes to farmers' RGRS adoption behavior, which provides new evidence for promoting the popularization of intelligent terminals in rural China. Another finding was that, perceived environmental degradation threats and environmental services of RGRS mediated the relationship between smartphone use and farmers' adoption behavior. This discovery provides us with enlightenment that knowledge related to environmental degradation and environmental services of RGRS can be imported into smartphone Apps commonly used by farmers to increase information exposure, raise environmental awareness and regulate farmer behavior. Besides, smartphone use reduced farmers' satisfaction with governmental support for RGRS, which adversely affected farmers' RGRS adoption behavior. Surprisingly, we found that the use of some traditional media helped to improve farmers' satisfaction. Therefore, policymakers should not ignore the role of traditional media while making use of smartphone-based information tools. These results can help policymakers better understand the contribution of smartphone use to conservation agriculture, and inform the development of supportive policies.

Keywords: Conservation agriculture; Environmental services; PLS-SEM; Perceived environmental degradation threats; RGRS adoption behavior; Satisfaction with governmental supports.