The impacts of internet use on farmers’ willingness to adopt sorting treatment of daily waste: Empirical evidence from the CLDS data

Chinese society is entering into the information age, characterized by internet and informatization, which has profoundly changed the behaviors of farmers. Based on a micro data of the CLDS in 2016, this paper analyzes the influencing factors of farmers’ internet use and the impacts of internet use on farmers’ willingness to adopt sorting treatment of daily waste by the propensity score matching method and furtherly explores the heterogeneity of the influence effect among internet access and rural households. Results show that the overall proportion of farmers using internet is not high, the willingness to adopt sorting treatment of daily waste is high, and the participation rate of daily waste sorting of farmers with internet use is up to 82.9%. The age of the household head, the average age of the household members, and the distance from city center have some negative impacts on internet use. While the educational background of the household head, the average educational background of the household members, household income, the proportion of well paved road miles, and the location of the local town government have some positive impacts on farmers’ internet use. Internet use can effectively enhance farmers’ willingness to adopt sorting treatment of daily waste, but the effect of different internet access is heterogeneous. The net effects of mobile internet access and mixed internet access on farmers’ willingness to adopt sorting treatment of daily waste are 5.2% and 3.1%, respectively. While computer internet access has no significant effects. There are some group differences in the impacts of internet use on farmers’ willingness to adopt sorting treatment of daily waste which is only applicable to the older generation of farmers, non-agricultural farmers, and male headed households. Therefore, this paper suggests: to strengthen the construction of rural internet software and hardware, to promote online public activities of sorting treatment of daily waste, and to formulate diversified public strategies for rural sorting treatment of daily waste.