Contract farming, social trust, and cleaner production behavior: field evidence from broiler farmers in China

Abstract

Pollution from livestock and poultry is the main source of rural pollution, which directly affects the rural ecological environment as well as the quality and safety of agricultural products. Based on field experiment data on broiler farmers in China, this paper analyzes farmers’ cleaner production behavior from the perspective of incomplete contracts and social trust. We find that social trust can promote farmers’ cleaner production behavior. Moreover, our evidence suggests that contract farming (CF) has a significant positive effect on farmers’ social trust and cleaner production behaviors. Further analysis indicates that CF not only directly promotes farmers’ cleaner production, but can also indirectly promote farmers’ cleaner production by improving their interpersonal trust and institutional trust. Overall, this paper offers a new point of view for improving the rural environment and sheds light upon how the government can formulate relevant policies to promote farmers’ cleaner production behavior.