The role of fine management techniques in relation to agricultural pollution and farmer income: The case of the fruit industry

Abstract

Although agriculture is enjoying booming development it is facing increasingly serious environmental pressures. With increase in the scale of fruit planting, inorganic mineral elements are becoming one of the main sources of non-point pollution. How to achieve sustainable production in agriculture is an issue that needs urgent attention in current rural development. In this paper, based on the micro-production data of peach farmers in 18 prefecture-level provinces, we introduce fine management techniques into the production function to analyze the effects of different techniques and further explore the influence of fine management techniques on fertilizer efficiency. Our findings show that with no change in the degree of investment in fine management techniques the increase in use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides has not only made little contribution to increasing profits but has also resulted in excessive investment in fertilizers that damage the environment. Notably, fine management techniques exerting positive effects on the application efficiency of mineral elements could be an efficient and sustainable way to ease the conflict between environment and profit. However, such techniques are used rarely in practice due to the lack of economic incentives. A brief review of the main measures, such as timely updating of market information, agricultural product branding and socialized services, is offered.