The Innovation Team of Agricultural Allocation and Regional Development of the Institute of Agricultural Resources and Regional Planning (IARRP) of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (CAAS) analyzed the current situation and problems of soil testing and formula fertilization promotion in China's grain producing areas, and revealed the obstacles, impacting mechanisms and improvement paths of soil testing and formula fertilization technology in the promotion process from the perspective of farmers.

The research results were published in the academic journal Technological Forecasting & Social Change, which belongs to the fields of economics and management with the title "Ambiguity Preference, Social Learning and Adoption of Soil Testing and Formula Fertilization Technology".

As the researcher Li Jianping illustrated, soil testing and formula fertilization technology is an environmentally-friendly technology promoted by the United Nations that can alleviate agricultural non-point source pollution and is widely used in countries around the world. Since 2005, China has implemented and promoted it, but farmers are not very motivated to understand and adopt it, which has become a bottleneck restricting the effective implementation of this environmentally friendly technology.

Based on the micro survey data of 681 grain growers, this study empirically analyzed the influence of ambiguity preference and social learning on farmers' soil testing and formula fertilization technology by using the method of experimental economics. The results found that farmers generally demonstrate a tendency of ambiguity aversion, which hinders technological spread and adoption. Social learning can alleviate farmers' information asymmetry and technology learning costs, and improve their adoption of soil testing and formula fertilization technology.

The contributions of this study are as follows, First, the research systematically proposes a theoretical mechanism that fully considers the impact of agricultural production uncertainty on farmers' technology adoption, and uses a large number of survey data to conduct empirical verification. Second, the method of experimental economics is introduced into the research framework, overcoming the drawbacks of inaccurate data surveys and serious endogeneity caused by traditional questionnaire surveys. Third, the research effectively strengthens the systematic promotion and utilization of soil testing and formula fertilization technology so as to provide a decision-making basis for government departments to formulate chemical fertilizer reduction policies and environmental protection policies in grain production areas.

The research results were funded by the National Modern Agricultural Industry Technology System, the National Natural Science Foundation of China and other projects. Postdoctoral scholar Wu Haixia is the first author, researcher Li Jianping is the co-first author, and Ge Yan is the corresponding author.

Technological Forecasting & Social Change is a well-known journal in the fields of social science and information strategy, which focuses mainly on social, environmental, economic, management and technology forecasting issues (IF 10.884, JCR Division Q1).

Full text link: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.techfore.2022.122037