Heterogeneous impacts of information technology adoption on pesticide and fertiliser expenditures: Evidence from wheat farmers in China

This study examines the impacts of mobile information technology adoption on agrochemical expenditures, using data collected from 551 wheat farmers in China. Unlike previous studies that analyse a homogeneous relationship between the adoption of information technologies and farm input use, in this study, an instrumental variable quantile regression approach is utilised to capture the heterogeneous impacts of smartphone use on pesticide and fertiliser expenditures. Findings reveal that smartphone use affects pesticide and fertiliser expenditures heterogeneously, and its impacts on pesticide expenditure are larger than those on fertiliser expenditure. Specifically, at the lowest 20th quantile, smartphone use significantly increases pesticide expenditure by 33 per cent and fertiliser expenditure by 18 per cent. However, at the higher 60th and 80th quantiles, smartphone use significantly decreases pesticide expenditure by 36–39 per cent and fertiliser expenditure by 14–19 per cent. Our findings suggest that guiding farmers’ agrochemical usage behaviours through smartphone-based information intervention can be a practical strategy to help reduce the excessive usage of chemical pesticides and fertilisers and preserve the environment and human health.

本研究基于中国551户小麦种植户的调研数据，考察移动信息技术采纳对农用化学品支出的影响。与既往研究仅分析信息技术采纳与农业生产投入使用间的同质关系不同，本研究采用工具变量分位数回归方法，以捕捉智能手机使用对农药与化肥支出的异质性影响。研究结果显示，智能手机使用对农药与化肥支出的影响存在异质性，且对农药支出的影响幅度大于化肥支出。具体而言，在最低20分位点处，智能手机使用可使农药支出显著提升33%，化肥支出显著提升18%；而在较高的60分位点与80分位点处，智能手机使用可使农药支出显著降低36%~39%，化肥支出显著降低14%~19%。本研究结果表明，通过基于智能手机的信息干预引导农户的农用化学品使用行为，可作为一项切实可行的策略，助力减少化学农药与化肥的过量使用，进而保护生态环境与人类健康。