Does Participation in Low-Carbon Agriculture Influence Farmers' Willingness to Grow Eco-Agricultural Crops

Abstract

Low-carbon agriculture has aroused wide concern around the world. Many countries are exploring how to reduce carbon emissions in agriculture. While farmers play a vital role in agriculture planting and eco-agricultural crops create less carbon emission, so are farmers willing to participate in the cultivation of eco-agricultural crops in the context of low-carbon agriculture This paper seeks to find whether farmers who participate in low-carbon agriculture are more willing to plant eco-agricultural crops (taking mushrooms for an example) in china. Logistic regression model was applied to find their relationships. The results show that farmers' participation in low-carbon agriculture has remarkable effects on their willingness to plant mushroom or other eco-agricultural crops, except for farmers' characteristics and the status of household production operation. According to this research, farmers are more likely to plant mushrooms when they recycle crop straw, agricultural plastic films and other agricultural wastes. And planting mushrooms have a positive effect on family's agricultural incomes both in low-income and high-income households. Recognition of benefits of low-carbon agriculture is a primary issue. Likewise, changing rural population structure as well as integrating rural resource factors is an effective measure to encourage farmers to plant mushrooms or other eco-agricultural crops. Subsidies and specialized cooperative organization's guidance should also be taken into consideration, which is good to arouse farmers' enthusiasm in planting eco-agricultural crops.