Sustainability, Vol. 11, Pages 6458: Adoption of Multiple Sustainable Manure Treatment Technologies by Pig Farmers in Rural China: A Case Study of Poyang Lake Region (Sustainability)

The adoption of sustainable manure treatment technologies (SMTTs) in livestock production helps to reduce agricultural contamination. As such, understanding what determines farmers’ adoption of SMTTs is an essential prerequisite for the administrative handling of livestock pollution. Applying a multivariate probit model on a cross-sectional data set of 686 pig farmers in Poyang Lake Region in China, this study discovered that two key factors influencing farmers’ decisions to adopt multiple SMTTs are off-farm labor and environmental awareness. In other words, households with a higher share of off-farm labor are less likely to adopt SMTTs. Farmers with higher environmental awareness are more likely to adopt SMTTs. The results also revealed that because of the inappropriateness of government subsidy and insufficient technical training, the impact of Chinese government subsidy on the adoption of biogas technology is negligible, but the subsidy on composting greatly helps to promote the adoption of composting technology. We also found a substitution effect and complementary effects between different SMTTs. These findings can improve policymakers’ understanding of farmers’ joint adoption decisions. It also helps policymakers to optimize subsidy strategies to encourage farmers’ adoption of SMTTs in rural China.