Search results

The purpose of this study was threefold: (1) to measure farmers' health poverty, (2) to examine the effect of health vulnerability on health poverty and (3) to identify countermeasures that may alleviate health poverty in rural China.

This study built a health poverty measurement model based on the multi-dimensional poverty framework to evaluate farmers' health vulnerability. Further, this paper used an econometric model to assess the impact of health vulnerability on health poverty. The sample for this study comprised 1,115 rice farmers from Hubei province, China.

The medical affordability poverty ratio was 17.95%, where farmers in the low-income group faced severe medical affordability poverty (27.46%). Results from the multi-dimensional analysis showed that, the health poverty ratios were 17.95 and 30.50%, respectively. Our results indicated that climate change vulnerabilities, living habits, medical facilities and medical accessibility were positively related to health poverty, whereas the regular physical examinations reduced mental health poverty.

Based on this study's findings, we proposed that: (1) to address illness-induced poverty among members of the agricultural community, national and provincial strategies and programs grounded on a multi-dimensional health poverty framework ought to be formulated and implemented, (2) mechanisms of health knowledge exchange may facilitate the improvement of farmers' health status, (3) robust and comprehensive metrics should be employed to understand and improve farmers' ability to absorb and mitigate the negative health impacts and (4) the improvement in both quality and quantity for medical facilities and medical affordability in the rural areas should be key priorities in governmental-wide initiatives.

Existing studies for alleviating poverty caused by disease mainly focus on medical service support to those economic vulnerabilities after a disease happens. However, few studies have focused on the root causes of poverty caused by disease, particularly from the preventive perspective of health vulnerability. To fill this gap, this study, therefore, proposes the health poverty index and analyzes the impact of health vulnerability on health poverty.

This paper traces the timeline and milestones of Chinese graduate students in agricultural economics and related fields at foreign universities, with an emphasis on North American universities, since the early 1980s, and assesses the contributions of Chinese doctoral recipients from foreign universities to agricultural economic research and education in North America and China.

Data from department and college websites, associations of agricultural economics, university libraries and databases of theses and dissertations and selected agricultural economic journals in English and Chinese are used to attain the above purposes through graphical and bibliometric analyses.

First, the numbers of Chinese doctoral recipients and tenure-track and tenured faculty in agricultural economics at North American universities have increased steadily and significantly. Second, Chinese scholars in North America have achieved tremendous success in agricultural economic research via high-quality publications, prestigious awards, editorship of top journals, leadership in professional organizations, etc. Third, more Chinese doctoral recipients overseas have increasingly returned to China and are playing important roles in China’s agricultural economic research, education and international collaboration. Fourth, the publications of overseas Chinese scholars in Chinese journals and those of their counterparts working in China on topics beyond China are relatively limited and more collaboration may enhance the global impacts of Chinese agricultural economists.

This research is limited by data availability and quality and the data problems are discussed in the paper.

This is likely the first study to assess the contributions of Chinese doctoral recipients from foreign universities to agricultural economic research and education in China and abroad.

The main purpose of this study is to examine the impact of agricultural internet information (AII) acquisition on climate-resilient variety adoption among rice farmers in the Jianghan Plain region of China. Additionally, it explores the influencing channels involved in this process.

Based on survey data for 877 rice farmers from 10 counties in the Jianghan Plain, China, this paper used an econometric approach to estimate the impact of AII acquisition on farmers’ adoption of climate-resilient varieties. A recursive bivariate Probit model was used to address endogeneity issues and obtain accurate estimates. Furthermore, three main influencing mechanisms were proposed and tested, which are broadening information channels, enhancing social interactions and improving agricultural skills.

The results show that acquiring AII can overall enhance the likelihood of farmers adopting climate-resilient varieties by 36.8%. The three influencing channels are empirically confirmed. Besides, educational attainment, income and peer effects can facilitate farmers’ acquisition of AII, while climate conditions and age significantly influence the adoption of climate-resilient varieties.

Practical recommendations are put forward to help farmers build climate resilience, including investing in rural internet infrastructures, enhancing farmers’ digital literacy and promoting the dissemination of climate-resilient information through diverse internet platforms.

Strengthening climate resilience is essential for sustaining the livelihoods of farmers and ensuring national food security; however, the role of internet information has received limited attention. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to examine the casual relationship between internet information and climate resilience, which fills the research gap.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the influence of clan social capital on the willingness to pay (WTP) and WTP value for collective biogas investment.

Using the Heckman two-stage model and a dataset of 1,265 representative observations from three provinces in Central China collected in 2019, this paper utilizes the contingent valuation method to estimate households' WTP value for collective biogas investment. The paper also explores the heterogeneity between households with different clan governance mechanisms and village governance structures.

The results indicate that clan networks and trust were likely to improve farmer households' WTP, while clan trust and norms could improve their WTP values. For clans with councils and for clans that can influence the decision-making of village committees, their members were more likely to be influenced by the social capital of their clans to pay for collective biogas investment.

This paper focuses on the WTP and WTP values of households for collective biogas investment, which is often neglected in the research. This paper suggests that clans can be used as a medium to urge households to increase their collective power to reduce carbon emissions and climate crises. The findings empirically contribute to efforts to reduce rural carbon emissions.

The purpose of this paper is to estimate shadow prices of agricultural carbon emissions produced by agricultural inputs, rice paddy and burning crop residue, and to explore the impact of cropping pattern on marginal abatement cost (MAC).

The shadow price of agricultural carbon emissions is estimated by applying directional distance function and non-parametric methods.

The estimated shadow price of agricultural carbon emissions ranges from 6.78 to 557.83 yuan/ton, and the average value is 62.50 yuan/ton (or $10.18/ton). The MAC value varies in different provinces and years. The regional difference of MAC shows a decreasing trend during the investigation period. Cropping pattern shows a significant negative impact on agricultural MAC. A 1 percent decrease of rice proportion leads to a 0.31 percent increase in MAC value. This implies that the higher the proportion of rice is, the lower the economic cost to reduce agricultural carbon emissions would be.

It is feasible to draw up appropriate mechanisms for the allocation of emission reduction responsibilities according to conditions in various regions, with emphasis on the local cropping patterns. There is a trade-off between reducing carbon emission and increasing crop yields.

This study calculates agricultural MAC by using the shadow price approach, taking agricultural carbon emissions as undesired environmental output. The study also provides a reference emission right price and provides guidance to make use of cropping structure adjustment and optimization for exploring the emission reduction strategy.