Impact of environmental literacy on farmers’ agricultural green production behavior: Evidence from rural China

Agricultural green production has been regarded as an effective way to solve the increasing level of agricultural environmental pollution and the frequent safety crises of agricultural products. As the main decision makers of agricultural production, farmers’ agricultural green production behavior directly determines the process of agricultural green development. However, few studies have explored farmers’ agricultural green production behavior from the perspective of environmental literacy, and the formation mechanism of farmers’ agricultural green production behavior is still unclear. This study aims to clarify the effect of environmental literacy on farmers’ agricultural green production behavior and its impact mechanism. Based on survey data from 830 farmers in China, this study constructs comprehensive index systems to evaluate farmers’ environmental literacy and agricultural green production behavior, and adopts multiple linear regression models and quantile regression model to explore the impact of environmental literacy on this behavior. Meanwhile, the mediation effect model is used to explore the mediation effect of agricultural green production cognition and agricultural green production willingness in the influence of environmental literacy on farmers’ agricultural green production behavior. Three conclusions arise. First, farmers’ environmental literacy and agricultural green production behavior are at the middle level, both of which should be strengthened. Second, environmental literacy has a significant positive impact on farmers’ agricultural green production behavior. Finally, environmental literacy influences farmers’ AGP behavior through the independent and chain mediation effects of AGP cognition and AGP willingness. Environmental literacy has heterogeneity impact on farmers’ agricultural green production behavior under different level of agricultural green production and external environment. This research not only provides theoretical support for the study of farmers’ agricultural green production behavior from the perspective of environmental literacy, it also provides a reference to the relevant government departments so that they can guide farmers to adopt more agricultural green production behavior.