This study investigates the key factors affecting farmers’ decisions to use chemical fertilizer and/or organic fertilizer in Chinese apple production. This study calculates partial output elasticities and elasticities of the substitution between organic and chemical fertilizer, using a stochastic frontier production function model and data for 2017–2019. Subsequently, it analyzes how different sales channels impact the partial output elasticities of organic fertilizer. It also examines the impact of economic incentives on organic fertilizer use and technical inefficiency levels in apple production. The empirical results indicate that the organic matter in organic fertilizer has a medium level of substitutability with nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium in chemical fertilizer. Further, the results indicate that an increase in the total number of available sales channels incentivizes farms to use more organic fertilizer to optimize apple quantity at the expense of the quality. Contrary, the use of any of the three most commonly used sales channels among apple growers (dealer door-to-door purchases, enterprise sales for juice pressing, and apple brokers) has the opposite effect on the use of organic fertilizer. From these findings, the subsidized provision of organic fertilizer and educating apple farmers about the economic and ecological benefits of sustainable land management measures are suggested. Finally, the study suggests measures to improve farmers’ income, sustainable land management, and lowering the footprint of chemical fertilizers in apple production in China.

Understanding urban consumers’ preferences for rice attributes is crucial for rice breeders, producers, and retailers to meet diverse and evolving market demands. Based on the sample data of 629 rice consumers in Shanghai, China, obtained through the choice experiment (CE) approach, this study uses the mixed logit (ML) model to analyze consumers’ preferences and willingness to pay (WTP) for food safety labels, brands, nutritional quality, and taste quality. Furthermore, the latent class (LC) model examines the heterogeneity in consumer group preferences. The research findings highlight that consumers prioritize taste quality as the most crucial attribute, followed by nutritional quality, food safety labels, and brand attributes. The premium rates for superior taste quality, organic certification labels, and green certification labels exceeded 100%. Interestingly, while combining organic certification with well-known international or domestic brands does not uniformly boost consumer preferences, incorporating green certification alongside well-known international or domestic brands significantly elevates those preference levels. Factors such as the external environment, consumption habits, and personal characteristics significantly influence individuals’ preferences for rice attributes. Based on these insights, the study puts forth policy recommendations for rice breeders, producers, and retailers.

The aging of the agricultural labor force is an irreversible trend that has become an important issue in China’s economic transformation. Previous studies on the effects of an aging population in developing countries on agriculture mainly focused on food crops, and the conclusions were mixed. Using data for apple growers in Shaanxi Province, China, we used ordinary least squares (OLS), stochastic frontier production function (SFA), and truncated regression to investigate how rural aging affects apple production under different landform conditions. We provided evidence that (i) aging leads apple growers to use hired labor to replace family labor in the flatlands, but not in mountainous and hilly areas, due to landform constraints on the factor substitution; (ii) aging has no significant impact on mechanical inputs in either the plains or the mountains, indicating that machinery cannot effectively replace the labor force; (iii) limited by a shortage of labor quantity and quality, apple growers respond to aging by reducing agricultural inputs in mountainous and hilly areas; (iv) changes in input structure cause aging to have little influence on yield and technical efficiency in flatlands, while aging significantly reduces yield in mountainous and hilly areas; (v) there is a nonlinear relationship between aging and technical efficiency and yield; and (vi) because the overall mechanization level of China’s apple industry is low, mechanical substitution for labor is not common in apple production.