Can TikTok be a good way to extend the adoption of green control techniques? Evidence from rural China

ABSTRACT In the context of agricultural digitalisation in China, TikTok is becoming widely popular in rural areas and a novel way for agricultural technology extension. Based on survey data on 770 rice and wheat farmers in Hubei and Henan provinces in China, the endogenous switching probit model was used to verify the influence of TikTok usage on the adoption of Green Control Techniques (GCT). We found that farmers’ adoption probability of GCT will be significantly increased by 9.3–11.8% with their use of TikTok to browse GCT content. This shows that TikTok is an effective way to extend GCT. Furthermore, TikTok can complement traditional offline training as a digital agriculture extension for small-scale, older, and non-plain-area farmers, who are often of unequal status and are unable to obtain government agricultural extension services. These findings evaluate the effectiveness of short video software as a digital agriculture extension platform, which contributes to the rapid and effective extension of GCT. It is suggested that more GCT online promotion platforms should be built and applied in China.