Experimental Design Details
The fertigation technology means the irrigation and fertilization processes are closely integrated to ensure that plants receive the right amount of water and nutrients precisely when they need them. By applying the appropriate amount of water and nutrients directly to the root zone of plants, fertigation minimizes wastage and enhances nutrient uptake, resulting in higher crop yields with reduced water and fertilizer consumption. This technique not only improves resource efficiency but also helps in preventing nutrient leaching and environmental pollution.
The fertigation technology has been widely used in many countries, such as the US, Canada, Israel, et. al., however, the adoption rate in China is low. This study aims to use information treatment of fertigation in a randomized controlled trial (RCT) in Hebei Province of China, covering approximately 500 large farmers, to investigate whether the technology information or market information are barriers of the expansion of the technology.
The following hypotheses will be tested:
Hypothesis 1: Access to the technology and market information will increase farmers' willingness to pay (WTP) for adopting the fertigation technology.
Hypothesis 2: Large farmers have higher WTP for adopting the fertigation technology.
Hypothesis 3: Farmers who are facing higher fertilizer price show larger WTP to the fertigation technology.
The RCT will be nested in a large-scale field household survey conducted in Hebei Province in China, designed to evaluate the policy impact of the Chinese government’s police intervention for groundwater overexploitation control.
The RCT will be conducted for the farmer with farm size larger than 50 mu, approximately 500 professional large farmers.
During the survey, all farmers will be asked to complete a baseline survey to determine their knowledge level of the technology and market information of fertigation technology. Each farmer's initial willingness to pay (WTP) for the technology at the baseline survey status will be collected. Then, farmers in the treatment group will receive the treatment. On the second day of the survey, all farmers, including those in the treatment and control groups, will be phone called to collect updated WTP and knowledge information on the technologies.
After at least one growing season, a follow-up survey will be conducted as the endline survey for the RCT. During the baseline and endline surveys, farmers' agricultural production, non-farm work, living conditions, demographic information, etc., will be collected. Local socioeconomic and natural information will be collected through a village-level questionnaire face-to-face interview, answered by a village leader.
The field operation will be supported by governments at different administrative levels to guarantee the randomization of the sample selection and treatment assignment. At the grassroots level, village leaders will be informed by their corresponding township leaders about the general plan of the survey. Farmers will be randomly selected from the name list at the village leader's office 2 or 3 days prior to the survey event. Village leaders will cooperate with the research team to contact each of the sampled farmers and make an appointment with them to participate in our survey and RCT experiment at the village leader's office building.
All surveyed farmers will be informed by the survey investigators before the survey starts about the purpose of the survey (i.e., for purely scientific research purposes), the general survey structure (including an RCT experiment), the anticipated length of the survey, and other necessary information (such as self-introduction and payment information for participating in the survey) to obtain their agreement to participate in the survey.
The research subjects of this experiment are real farmers with farm size larger than 50 mu in Hebei Province of China. We will collect the contact information of all the surveyed individuals. Only adult farmers will be invited to participate in our field survey and experiment. The anticipated number of subjects is approximately 500.