Factors affecting farmers' willingness to pay for adopting vegetable residue compost in North China

The random disposal of vegetable residues in north China has become an important obstacle for the sustainable development of vegetable industry. The composting treatment technology has been transformed into organic fertilizer by high temperature fermentation, which has become a widely promoted agricultural clean production technology. However, due to the voluntary nature of farmers' adoption and their reluctance to adopt, this study aimed at assessing the factors that influence their adoption will and evaluate the value of willingness to pay (WTP) for composting technology. Data were collected from 142 respondents through a household survey in Gaocheng District by using structural questionnaire of contingent valuation method (CVM). Some qualitative response models (Probit, Logistic and multiple linear regression models) were applied for examining the main factors influencing the vegetable residue compost adoption and estimating the WTP value. The findings showed that social resource factors play an important role in the respondents' behaviors toward composting technology adoption. The empirical results indeed highlighted that subsidy policy, top dressing time, age, scale, investment of irrigation and net income have significant positive influences on the WTP of compost, while work time and information sources have a negative impact. Government subsidy is a necessary premise for implementing the composting program. The governments should subsidize the remaining 97% of the construction costs to ensure the smooth implementation of composting technology. The findings specifically mentioned that the subsidy object should be the disadvantaged peasant groups with lower household income but more environmentally conscious. This paper is believed to not only assess the technical externality of vegetable residues for the first time but also provide decision reference for policymakers, especially in the background of rapid development of agricultural clean production technology, the accuracy and efficiency of subsidies should be improved.