Reasons behind the paradox between farmers’ willingness and their behaviors of applying organic fertilizer: A case study of Heilongjiang Province

It is of great significance to guide farmers to continuously apply organic fertilizer for soil improvement, environmental improvement, promoting the green development of agriculture and finally realizing the revitalization of rural ecology. Based on a survey data in Heilongjiang Province, this paper empirically tested the factors that affect the paradox between farmers’ willingness and their behaviors of applying organic fertilizer by the logistic regression model and analyzed the logical relationship among different factors by the interpretative structural model (ISM). Results show that 73% of those surveyed farmers had the paradox between farmers’ willingness and their behaviors of applying organic fertilizer. Some significantly positive influencing factors include the age and the scale of cultivated land, and some significantly negative influencing factors include the education level, the proportion of agricultural income, whether to join farmers’ professional cooperatives, whether to serve as the village leaders, the availability of organic fertilizer, the cognition of the application policy of organic fertilizer, and the cognition of the harm caused by the application of chemical fertilizer. Among these factors, age, education level, the proportion of agricultural income, scale of cultivated land, whether to join farmers’ professional cooperatives and whether to serve as the village leaders are the deeper reasons causing the conflict between farmers’ willingness and their behaviors of applying organic fertilizer. The availability of organic fertilizer leads to differences in the cognition of the application policy of organic fertilizer and the cognition of the harm, which ultimately lead to the paradox between farmers’ willingness and their behaviors of applying organic fertilizer. Therefore, from the three dimensions of government, market and farmers, this paper puts forward some policy suggestions, including improving the application range and depth of organic fertilizer, enhancing the supply capacity of organic fertilizer, and increasing the cognitive capacity of green production of farmers.