Low-carbon production has great potential to limit greenhouse gas emissions and protect the living environment. This research innovatively introduces green cognition into the theory of planned behavior (TPB) to validate the effect of green cognition on farmers’ low-carbon production behavior. In this research, we use structural equation model (SEM) to research the low-carbon production behavior of 265 farmers in Yilan County, Harbin City, China. Our results indicate that farmers’ perceived behavioral control (PBC) has a remarkable impact in generating their low-carbon production intention, while attitude (ATT) and subjective norms (SN) have no significant positive impact. Meanwhile, it is verified that the perceived behavioral control and behavioral intention (INT) of farmers have a significant positive impact on their low-carbon production behavior. In addition, the research also verifies that green cognition (GC) has a significant positive impact on farmers’ attitudes and subjective norms of low-carbon production behavior, and green cognition may indirectly affect low-carbon production behavior through farmers’ subjective norms and intention pathways, reflecting that the extended theoretical framework of planned behavior is applicable to the research of farmers’ low-carbon production behavior.

Improving the efficiency of waste sorting plays a critical role in improving resource utilization efficiency and accelerating green and low-carbon development. Based on the theory of planned behavior (TPB), this study uses structural equation model (SEM) to study the factors that influence 650 farmers’ intention to sort waste from the psychological angle of the farmers in Yilan county of Harbin city and Luobei county of Hegang city of Heilongjiang province. Notably, the study confirmed that attitude (ATT), subjective norms (SN) and perceived behavioral control (PBC) can affect farmers’ waste sorting intention (INT) significantly and perceived behavioral control is the most important influencing factor of farmers’ intention in waste sorting. Meanwhile, there is a positive correlation between the three factors of farmer’s attitude, subjective norm and perceived behavioral control towards waste sorting.