Social networks, environmental literacy, and farmers' clean low-carbon farming behaviors: Evidence from villages in China

Abstract

Under the global climate crisis, in addition to governmental environmental regulations, farmers' behaviors has been recognized as an important part of achieving decarbonization plans in the agricultural sector. While social networks and environmental literacy have been confirmed as key factors influencing Clean Low-Carbon Farming Behavior (CLFB) among farmers, yet few studies have explored their combined effects.

Based on a dataset of 352 farmers in China, this study examined the relationship between social networks, environmental literacy and farmers' CLFB. First, social networks facilitate the implementation of CLFB through three mechanisms: “information networks”, “reference networks”, and “mutual assistance networks” where network strength, breadth, and height also play promoting roles. Second, environmental literacy and its three levels-nominal literacy, functional literacy, and operational literacy-all promote CLFB, while functional literacy shows the greatest promoting effect. Third, the above conclusions still hold after introducing instrumental variables for endogeneity discussion. Finally, environmental literacy and its three levels partially mediate the impact of social networks on CLFB. The findings have important implications for South and Southeast Asian countries that face the same conflict between food security and decarbonization as China.