Abstract:

Agricultural waste was called the “Misplaced Resources” for its inclusion of enormous energy, and its direct emissions without scientific treatment would cause environment pollution and resource waste. From the perspective of farmers concurrent business, using survey data from rural areas of Hubei, the Logistic regression model was applied into the comparative analysis of willingness to recycle agricultural waste resources and influencing factors among farmers with different types of concurrent business. The results indicated that: (1)785% of the fulltime farmers (farmers whose proportion of nonfarm income to total household income is within 10%) were willing to recycle agricultural waste resources, and nearly the same, that of the type I farmers (farmers whose proportion of nonfarm income to total income is between 10% and 50%) was 798%, and both were higher than that of type II farmers (more than half of their income is from nonfarm business). (2)The perception to the value of agricultural waste resources was the common factor that influenced farmers willingness to recycle with different types of concurrent business. The greater farmers perception to the value of agricultural waste resources was, the higher their willingness to recycle. (3)The factors influencing recycling willingness were quite different among farmers with different types of concurrent business. In details, gender had a positive impact on farmers recycling willingness, especially on type II farmers, namely relative to female, male farmers recycling willingness were much higher. The significant negative effects of age on fulltime and type II farmer recycling willingness were observed, and especially greater on the former. The land management scale influenced farmers recycling willingness positively, and particularly influenced type I farmers willingness. The perception to acquisition of economic income had a positive impact on type I and type II farmers recycling willingnesses, and a greater impact on type I farmers. The perception to their own economic conditions particularly influenced fulltime farmers recycling willingness, which meant that it would be higher if they perceived better economic conditions. In addition, it was noteworthy that household net income had a positive effect on fulltime farmers recycling willingness, and the greater fulltime farmers household net income was, the higher their willingness. And the perception to their own learning ability had a positive impact on type II farmers recycling willingness, that is to say, farmers would have higher willingness if they perceived ease of learning agricultural waste resources recycling concepts and methods. In conclusion, we got the following policy implications. (1) Improve farmers, especially female farmers recycling willingness perceived value of agricultural waste resources through educational training and propaganda, and highlight its economic benefits to attract and encourage more participation of farmers. (2) Promote land reform system and household register system so as to give more land to fulltime and type I farmers. (3) Increase fund input and subsidy to improve farmers economic conditions and their willingness to pay for the recycling of agricultural waste resources. (4) Strengthen political support for the perfection of social security system to improve old farmers living standard and avoid their constraints on agricultural production