Farmers' Willingness to Adopt Clean Energy - Survey in Northeastern China

Abstract

Among 1.38 billion people in China, approximately forty-two percent of the population reside in rural areas. Farmers' willingness to adopt clean energy is crucial to policy makers, planners and business developers as China will begin its Paris Agreement implementation in 2020. For Chinese government, switching energy sources will be a monumental task. To understand farmers' opinions, 527 farmers were surveyed in Jilin Province of Northeast China, and nearly 83% of them burn coal and dried stalk/straw to heat homes and cook food. Their willingness to adopt clean energy is assessed in four different areas: attitude towards behavior, subjective norms, perceived behavioral control, and socioeconomic characteristics. A binary logistic regression model is establish with one dependent variable (willingness to adopt clean energy) and twelve independent variables: 1. Quality of life, 2. Monthly expenses, 3. Environment benefits, 4. Government commitments, 5. Appraisal from neighbors and friends, 6. Local clean energy market maturity, 7. Switching costs, 8. Savings in labors, 9. Technical guidance and periodical maintenance instructions, 10. Age, 11. Education level, and 12. Household annual income. Our results indicate that nine variables (X1 - X5, X7 - X9 and X12) have apparent impacts on the farmers' willingness to adopt clean energies. The impacts from X1, X3 - X5, X8 - X9 and X12 are positive, while that from X2 and X7 are negative. Implications of the results are discussed, along with policy suggestions.