The impact of government regulations on farmers’ reduction of antimicrobial use: a survey of 1395 hog farmers in China

This study was based on a sample of 1,395 pig farmers from the fixed observation points in rural China in 2019. By applying a damage control model with an exponential distribution as the loss function, this study explored the marginal productivity of veterinary drug use among pig farmers in the four major pig - raising regions in China (the key - development region, the moderate - development region, the constrained - development region, and the potential - development region). Additionally, a binary Logit model was utilized to analyze the impacts of various factors on the excessive drug - use behavior of pig farmers in different regions. The estimation results of the damage - control model demonstrated that pig farmers in all four major farming regions had severe problems of excessive drug use. The proportions of excessive drug users in these regions were 47.4%, 66.1%, 67.2%, and 54.2% respectively. The regression results of the binary Logit model indicated that the regulatory and guiding behaviors of the government had a significant influence on the excessive drug - use behavior of pig farmers. However, the impacts differed across different regions. In moderately developed areas, part-time farming significantly inhibits excessive drug use by farmers. In potential development areas, joining agricultural cooperatives has the same effect. In restricted development areas, participating in farming training also has a significant inhibitory effect. Therefore, the government should strongly support the development of farmers' cooperatives and increase the scale and frequency of livestock training. Differentiated policies need to be formulated according to the different resource endowments in various livestock - raising regions.