Does the joint adoption of product certification and e‑commerce improve fertilization practices? Evidence from Chinese kiwifruit farmers

Reducing chemical fertilizer use and increasing organic fertilizer inputs are crucial for ensuring the quality and safety of agricultural products and mitigating agricultural non‑point source pollution. Using micro-survey data from 1149 kiwifruit growers in Shaanxi and Sichuan provinces, China, this study applies a multinomial endogenous switching regression (MESR) model to address endogeneity arising from both observable and unobservable factors. We examine the effects of product certification, e-commerce, and their joint adoption on farmers’ fertilization behavior. The results show that e-commerce promotes farmers’ investments in farmyard manure and organic fertilizers while also increasing chemical fertilizer use. Product certification reduces chemical fertilizer use and increases organic fertilizer inputs, but it has a significant negative effect on farmers’ farmyard manure inputs. Further analysis reveals that jointly adopting product certification and e-commerce improves fertilization practices. Specifically, farmers’ chemical fertilizer inputs decrease by 19.9%, while farmyard manure and organic fertilizer inputs increase by 17.6% and 30.4%, respectively. These findings deepen our understanding of how product certification and e-commerce shape farmers’ environmentally friendly production behaviors and provide practical policy implications for developing countries seeking to promote a green transformation in agriculture through market-based instruments.