Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate farmers’ intentions to comply with pesticide application standards based on an extended theory of planned behaviour (TPB). Design/methodology/approach: Built on a TPB framework, it was examined how perceived behavioural control (PBC), behavioural goal (BG), behavioural attitude (BA) and subjective norm (SN) influenced farmers’ intention to comply with pesticide application standards. Data of 986 farmers from five major agricultural provinces in China were collected following a stratified random sampling method. Structural equation modelling was employed for hypothesis testing and analysis. Findings: The results showed that PBC, BG, behavioural attitude and SN had positive impacts on farmers’ intention in abiding by the standards. Among them in determining farmers’ intention towards compliance with pesticide application standards, farmers’ PBC was found to be the most influential factor, while SN was the least influential factor. Originality/value: The results indicated that the traditional TPB constructs had significant correlations with farmers’ intention to comply with pesticide standards, demonstrating the applicability of the TPB in the understanding of farmers’ decision-making in a developing country context. It is suggested that psychological factors should be taken into consideration in studying farmers’ decision-making.

Purpose: In China, a major grain producer, rice losses during harvest cannot be ignored. The purpose of this paper is to assess the extent of rice harvest losses in major grain-producing areas in China by a sampling survey, and to further analyze the main factors influencing rice harvest losses using an ordered multinomial logistic model.Design/methodology/approach: In this study, data were collected using a multi-stage sampling method from ten major rice-producing provinces/regions in China. On this basis, five counties were selected from each of these provinces/regions. In the actual survey, house numbers were randomly selected, and then corresponding farmer households were visited by trained investigators.Findings: The survey found that 56.22 percent of respondents believed that rice harvest losses were 4 percent or lower in China, though there were differences among the provinces. The proportion of family business income, planting scale, mechanization level, timely harvest, and operational meticulousness had negative effects on rice harvest losses. On the other hand, farmers’ experience of employment as migrant workers had a positive effect on rice harvest losses. In addition, bad weather and short handedness during harvest significantly increased rice harvest losses.Originality/value: The meaning of rice harvest losses was defined based on previous research findings on the definition of grain harvest losses and the realities in China. The current rice harvest losses in different areas in China were analyzed based on sampling survey data from 957 farmers in ten provinces in China.

This study contributes to the debate about effective regulatory strategies for environmental regulation in achieving sustainable agriculture, particularly in understudied emerging economies. We leverage the case of swine manure recovery in China to illuminate this crucial but under‐researched context. Building on the theory of planned behavior, which posits a gap between intention and behavior, we investigate how these regulations and their combinations influence swine farmers' intentions and behaviors toward resource recovery. Findings reveal command‐and‐control regulations most effectively stimulate initial intentions, while incentive‐based regulations work best in bridging the gap between intention and action. Information‐based approaches further strengthen this conversion, particularly when combined with incentives. Bridging the disciplines of regulation and behavioral science, this study advances theoretical understanding of the intention‐behavior gap in environmental policy. It informs effective regulation design that promote sustainable agricultural practices in developing countries, ultimately contributing to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals.

The agricultural sector faces persistent labor shortages, which undermine the sustainability of grain production and threaten food security. To address these challenges, a crucial innovation aimed at enhancing efficiency and productivity. However, the specific mechanisms through which SWSAP influences sustainable grain production capacity remain insufficiently explored. This study aims to fill this gap by examining the impact of SWSAP on sustainable grain production capacity, with a specific focus on the underlying mechanisms. The research employs a Difference-in-Differences (DID) approach, utilizing panel data from 2008 to 2022 across 31 provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities in China. The findings demonstrate that SWSAP significantly enhances sustainable grain production capacity. Mechanism analysis reveals that SWSAP drives this improvement by transforming production structures and optimizing production techniques. Notably, the effects exhibit significant regional heterogeneity, specifically reflected in differences in locational characteristics, topographical features, the number of service organizations, the agricultural institutional environment, and the penetration rates of ASS. This research contributes to understanding how socialization services in agriculture can effectively support sustainable grain production, offering valuable insights for policy-making aimed at ensuring food security in China and other countries facing similar challenges.

The resource utilization of agricultural waste is an important way to achieve the green transformation of agriculture. Based on micro-survey data from 701 farmers in Jiangsu Province, this paper constructs a binary logistic model to explore how farmers’ social trust affects their decisions regarding agricultural waste resource utilization. It also examines the moderating effect of environmental regulation policies between the two. The results show that social trust has a significant positive impact on farmers’ agricultural waste resource utilization behavior. Secondly, guiding environmental regulation policies positively moderate the effect of interpersonal trust on farmers’ agricultural waste resource utilization behavior, while both guiding and restrictive environmental regulation policies serve as substitute moderators in the relationship between institutional trust and farmers’ participation behavior. Finally, heterogeneity analysis shows that, due to differences in household endowments, the impact of interpersonal trust and institutional trust on agricultural waste resource utilization behavior differs across different farmer groups. Therefore, this paper suggests cultivating and enhancing the level of social trust among farmers, thereby promoting their participation in waste resource utilization while strengthening the regulatory role of environmental regulation policies in shaping farmers’ behavior.

Farmland rental is an important means of optimizing agricultural land allocation and promoting appropriately scaled farming. Against the backdrop of accelerating digital and intelligent transformation in agricultural, how digital and intelligent technology (DIT) adoption relates to farmers’ farmland rental-in behavior require clear theoretical explanation and empirical validation. Using 2024 survey data from 385 grain-growing farmers in Jiangsu Province, China, this study examines the relationship between DIT adoption and farmland rental-in behavior using Probit, endogenous switching regression, IV-Probit, and conditional mixed-process models. The results show that DIT adoption is significantly and positively associated with both farmland rental-in decisions and rented-in scale. These findings remain robust across alternative samples and estimation specifications. Heterogeneity analyses indicate that this positive association is more pronounced for production-oriented than information-oriented DIT applications, for farms with larger baseline operational scales than smallholders, and for households with lower aging ratios. Mechanism analyses suggest that DIT adoption corresponds to farmland rental-in primarily through labor substitution effects and transaction cost reductions in rural land markets. This study extends farmland rental research to the context of agricultural digitalization, offering empirical insights for advancing digital agriculture, improving farmland rental markets, and fostering appropriately scaled farming operations.