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In response to global climate change, the Chinese Government has taken numerous measures to promote low-carbon management practices, but the overall adoption rate has been lower than expected. Empirical studies on the path dependence of farming experience, that is, long-standing planting concepts that will hinder farmers from adopting new technologies, have not been reported. Hence, to fill the research gaps, this paper uses survey data from 805 rice farmers in Zhejiang, Hubei, and Jiangxi provinces, China, to examine the impact of farming experience on the adoption of soil testing and fertilizer recommendations. The results show that farming experience significantly negatively affects the adoption of low-carbon practices, especially among farmers with low resource endowment. However, farmers, who make decisions based jointly on farming experience and social networks, are more likely to adopt low-carbon practices. This means that as long as farming experience is used reasonably, for example, by broadening the social network of farmers and urging them to form a decision-making method that comprehensively utilizes farming experience and social networks, it can also demonstrate value. Our findings contribute meaningfully to the development of efforts to promote the adoption of low-carbon management practices in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pesticide overuse is still prevalent in many developing countries. And improving farmers' pest control ability is considered to be the key to achieve pesticide reduction. Based on the survey data of 822 rice farmers from Hubei, Jiangxi, and Zhejiang provinces in the Yangtze River Basin, we demonstrated the impact of pest control ability and technical guidance on farmers' pesticide overuse. We find that rice farmers' insufficient pest control ability does not necessarily lead to pesticide overuse, which depends on whether there is external technical guidance. The technical guidance of government agrotechnical stations and pesticide retailers can weaken pesticide overuse caused by lack of personal ability. In terms of sample, variable and method substitution, the above estimated results are still robust. In addition, we find that different subjects and links of pesticide technical guidance will bring different impacts. The technical guidance of agrotechnical stations mainly plays a role in the time and type of pesticide application, while the pesticide retailers mainly play a role in the time and dosage of pesticide application. This paper emphasizes that strengthening the guidance and regulation of pesticide technology guidance subject is also an efficient way of pesticide reduction. This will help to improve the effect of agricultural extension and accelerate the realization of pesticide reduction target in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• We study the effects of agricultural insurance on pesticide application in China. • Purchasing agricultural insurance helps to encourage farmers to apply biological pesticides. • Purchasing agricultural insurance reduce the use of chemical pesticides. • Agricultural insurance can reduce the risk of applying biological pesticides. • Moral hazard is an important factor in encouraging farmers to apply biological pesticides. Based on the survey data from farmers in Hubei, Jiangxi, and Zhejiang provinces, this paper constructs a theoretical model of the impact of agricultural insurance on farmers' biopesticide application behavior. Furthermore, it adopts the endogenous switching probit model to empirically analyze the effect of agricultural insurance on farmers' biopesticide application behavior. We also estimate the probability that farmers will buy agricultural insurance and apply biological pesticides under the counterfactual framework. The results show that, first, 59.12% of the farmers in the sample area have purchased agricultural insurance and that 62.45% of the farmers have used biological pesticides. Second, the overall average treatment effect is 0.082. This indicates that, if all farmers buy agricultural insurance, the probability that farmers will apply biological pesticides increases by 8.2%. It can be seen that purchasing agricultural insurance encourages farmers to apply biological pesticides. Third, purchasing agricultural insurance can encourage farmers to increase the use of biological pesticides and reduce the use of chemical pesticides. In addition, purchasing agricultural insurance increases the ratio of the amount of biological pesticides to chemical pesticides. This finding shows that agricultural insurance can increase the relative importance of biological pesticides. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]