How Perceived Stress Affects Farmers' Continual Adoption of Farmland Quality Improvement Practices

Regarding the fact that smallholder farmers form the main part of agriculture, actively guiding smallholder farmers to continually adopt the farmland quality improvement practice in their agricultural production process is considered as the critical path to improve farmland sustainability for the agricultural sector in China especially smallholder farmers planting economic crops, such as tea, that have long relied on heavy inputs of chemical fertilizers that seriously undermine the quality of farmland. However, the state efforts towards the promotion of farmers' adoption of farmland quality improvement practices for years have not obtained remarkable results. In this context, based on expectation confirmation theory and conservation of resources theory, the study classified farmers' perceived stress towards continual adoption of farmland quality improvement practice into three categories: stress from uselessness perception, difficulty perception, and in-adaptability perception. A structural equation model was utilized to explore the impact of perceived stress on farmers' continual adoption of the practice in a sample of 494 tea farmers from Qinba Mountain Area in China. Additionally, the mediating effect of self-efficacy and moderating effect of social support are discussed theoretically and empirically in the paper. The research findings show that the stress from in-adaptability perception has the strongest inhibitory effect of the three on farmers' continual behavior while the stress from difficulty perception is the weakest. Further, the mediating effect of self-efficacy in the relationship between perceived stress and farmers' continual adoption behaviors was confirmed. Additionally, the study indicated that social support can buffer the negative impact of perceived stress from uselessness perception and difficulty perception on farmers' continual adoption behaviors. Therefore, fully considering farmers' perceived stress, providing farmers with support in a targeted manner, would strengthen the coordination between the government and the household on farmland improvement practices, accelerating the achievement of farmland sustainability.

Automated summary

This study investigated the impact of perceived stress on smallholder farmers' adoption of farmland quality improvement practices in China. Using a structural equation model, the researchers found that the stress from in-adaptability perception had the strongest inhibitory effect on farmers' continual behavior, while the stress from difficulty perception had the weakest effect. The study also confirmed the mediating effect of self-efficacy in the relationship between perceived stress and farmers' adoption behaviors, as well as the buffering effect of social support on the negative impact of perceived stress.