Farmers’ Livelihood Differentiation and Pesticide Application: Empirical Evidence from a Causal Mediation Analysis

As agriculture is becoming a less reliable source of income, many farmers are turning to other industries supplement their lackluster profits from farming in process known as farmers’ livelihood differentiation. Despite the existence voluminous literature on differentiation, little about its effect agricultural production behavior. To fill this knowledge gap, study uses rice planting data 537 Chinese farm households analyze how differentiation affects pesticide application among rural China. This not only examines effects application, but also underscores potential pathways behind according land resource endowment via causal mediation analysis. The results showed that (1) had direct amount use. Compared full-time households, regular part-time and ir-regular generally tend use lower levels pesticides. (2) mediating was through endowment. reduce maintaining better endowment, while increase by poor These may provide important implications for policymakers improve cultivated protection policies encourage soil testing technology determine formulation fertilizer used ecological environment.