Influence of Cooperatives' Socialized Services on Agricultural Households' Chemical Fertilizer and Pesticide Use Intensity —Based on the Evidence from Two Counties, Hubei, China

Abuse of chemical fertilizer and pesticide will not only impair the quality of agricultural products, but also damage the agricultural ecological environment. From the perspective of cooperatives' socialized services, this paper studies agricultural households' chemical fertilizer and pesticide use behavior, attempting to provide references for the government's formulation of relevant policies and cooperatives' adjustment of their operation strategies. The survey data of 518 agricultural households in Zigui County and Badong County, Hubei Province, China are used to examine the influence of cooperatives and their socialized services on agricultural households' chemical fertilizer and pesticide use intensity via propensity score matching. Research reveals that: (1) Joining cooperatives has a significantly negative influence on agricultural households' chemical fertilizer and pesticide use intensity, and the average treatment effect is –341.505 yuan mu–1. (2) Agricultural materials supply services and technical support services can significantly bring down agricultural households' chemical fertilizer and pesticide use intensity, and the average treatment effect is –225.966 yuan mu–1 and –163.580 yuan mu–1, respectively. While the influence of agricultural products sale services on chemical fertilizer and pesticide use intensity is not significant. (3) Grouped investigation is carried out by age, education years and planting scale, and the influence of socialized services on agricultural householders' chemical fertilizer and pesticide use intensity is obviously varied among different groups. The influence of agricultural materials supply services on agricultural households who are elder, with smaller education years and small planting scale is significant; the influence of technical support services on agricultural households who are younger, with higher education years and small planting scale is significant; the influence of agricultural products sale services on agricultural households who are elder is significant. It is necessary to improve the percentage of agricultural households joining cooperatives, increase the supply level of cooperatives' socialized services, and make socialized services of cooperatives more targeted. All this can contribute to further reduction of agricultural households' chemical fertilizer and pesticide use intensity.