A study on factors influencing Chinese farmers’ willingness to input in Jujube planting

• Published in: Heliyon Vol. 9; no. 11; p. e21470
• Main Authors: Shen, Hongwei, Wang, Jin, Lyu, Bei
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: England Elsevier Ltd 01-11-2023; Elsevier
• Subjects: Farmers' willingness; Influencing factors; Invest; Jujube planting; policies; Jujube planting; Farmers' willingness; policies; Invest; Influencing factors
• ISSN: 2405-8440; 2405-8440
• DOI: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2023.e21470

Agriculture, the basis of a country's economic and social development, is restricted by natural climate conditions. Characteristic agriculture varies as different regions have diverse climate conditions. Due to its outstanding drought tolerance and adaptability in arid and semi-arid marginal areas and barren saline–alkali land, the jujube fruit is considered an important characteristic of agriculture in nine provinces along the Yellow River in China. It plays an important role in economic development and farmers' income; however, due to the constraints of capital, technology, price fluctuations and other aspects, farmers in these provinces are unwilling to invest in jujubes and the further development of the jujube industry is restricted. Based on this, this study selected 11 factors that may affect farmers' willingness to input in jujube as variables; the influence of these independent variables was quantitatively analysed using the survey data of 984 farmers in main producing provinces with SPSSAU software and principal component analysis method. Three principal components were extracted according to each variable's characteristic roots and variance interpretation rate, and the influencing factors were classified into three factors according to the load coefficient of these principal components. Three relevant components are agricultural incentive measures (technical training, agricultural loans, agricultural insurance and government subsidies), jujube planting input and output (average income and input cost per acre) and jujube sales status (sales difficulty and sales income trend). Furthermore, the multiple linear regression model was used to perform regression analysis on the eight key factors involved under the three categories and the results showed that R2 was 0.756, p values were all <0.01 and VIF values were all <5. The results indicated that the model was effective and verified that these eight key factors impacted farmers' willingness to plant jujubes. This study aimed to quantitatively describe each independent variable's influence on farmers' willingness to invest in jujube planting and propose corresponding incentive measures according to their influence effects. The study can provide new ideas for improving farmers' willingness to invest in jujube and a practical basis for the agricultural sector to implement accurate policies and has direct guiding significance and value for promoting the development of the jujube industry. Meanwhile, the results also have a certain reference value for the research of fruit planting input in other regions.