Abstract:

Agriculture is a major nonpoint pollution source leading to the Lake Tais eutrophication. A random inhouse survey was conducted to study the fertilizing behaviors of the local farmers in rice planting and their potential influencing factors in 15 villages in the critical protection zone to the west of Tai Lake. Since most of the local farmers are not welleducated, the survey was conducted by means of facetoface interviews based on a preconstructed questionnaire, which included a series of questions on the following six aspects of the interviewed farmers: (1) basic socialeconomic characteristics, such as age, education, farm size, purpose of rice planting, and sale income of crop; (2) the cost of grain production including seeds, fertilizers, pesticides, machine, labor, and irrigation; (3) the fertilizing behaviors including the type, amount, and timing of fertilizer application, and the use of organic fertilizer; (4) fertilizing attitudes, knowledge and decisionmaking basis, such as attitudes towards fertilizer price, estimates of nitrogen fertilizer recovery efficiency, sources of fertilizing knowledge, the basis for deciding the timing and amount of fertilizer application, and previous  experiences with fertilizerrelated education programs and training; (5) willingness to change fertilizing behaviors, such as their attitudes towards risk, and willingness to follow fertilizing advice of local agricultural extension service; (6) consciousness of water pollution control, such as their assessment of water quality and the impacts of fertilizer usage on ambient water environment, and the acknowledgement of farmers roles in controlling fertilizer usage. Totally, 112 facetoface interviews were conducted. After the exclusion of 2 interviews data due to the incompletion, 110 were compiled for further analysis. Study results are as follows. (1) There is much variation among the farmers in both the amount and types of applied mineral fertilizers under the context of universal overfertilization in the study region. (2) Most of the fertilizer usage of the local famers is subjective and arbitrary. Farmers age and their attitudes towards controlling fertilizer use have shown to be significant impacts on their fertilizing behaviors. (3) Some unexpected results have been obtained in the analysis of the impacts of farmers perceptions towards fertilizer use and environmental consciousness on their fertilizer usage. This reinforces that lack of scientific guidance in fertilizer use has caused some farmers uncertain of the right ways in control of fertilizer usage in practice despite their good intentions. Therefore, there are great potentials for the fertilizer education and training programs which do not require complicated models and calculations to reduce fertilizer usage and nutrient loss in the study region, if these programs are tailored towards the local farmers characteristics of old age, lack of education, and the tendency of risk aversion. In addition, a “guaranteed crop production” program as similar as the United States crop reservation program is suggested to encourage the adoption of the best management practices by obliging the participated farmers to follow specific fertilizing rules while providing insurance against the potential risk of reduced grain production. If successfully implemented, these programs will prove to be costeffective in water pollution control in the region of Tai Lake