Does E-commerce participation increase the use intensity of organic fertilizers in fruit production?–Evidence from China

Commerce has had positive impacts on the whole agri-food value chain at different stages, it was developed rapidly in rural China in the past few years. E-commerce participation can promote the use intensity of organic fertilizers (OF) and this could achieve many benefits for different stakeholders including ensuring food safety, positive environmental impacts and promoting the adoption of green production technologies. Therefore, this study has used primary data collected from 733 fruit farmers in rural China to explore the impact of e-commerce participation on fruit farmers’ use intensity of (OF). Unlike previous studies investigating the dichotomous decision of (OF) adoption, this study captures the use intensity of (OF) from both input quantity and cost aspects. We employed an endogenous switching regression (ESR) model to address selectivity bias caused by observed and unobserved factors. The results show that e-commerce participation significantly increases the use intensity of (OF) in input quantity and cost by 19.48% and 29.50%, respectively. Heterogeneous analysis further reveals that compared to fruit farmers with a low e-commerce participation level, fruit farmers with a high e-commerce participation level have higher (OF) use intensity. The findings also show that risk preference, human capital, cultivated area, cooperative membership and government restraint mechanisms positively and significantly affect the probability of fruit farmers’ participation in e-commerce and fruit farmers’ use intensity of (OF). The results emphasize that e-commerce promotion is an efficient way to encourage farmers to adopt (OF), which help improve product quality and promote sustainable agricultural development.