Farmers' adoption of sustainable agricultural technologies: A case study in Shandong Province, China

A proper sustainable agricultural technology system is an important technical support for the promotion of sustainable agricultural development. Increasing evidence, especially from Asia, Africa and Latin America, proves that adoption of sustainable agricultural technologies can bring both environmental and economic benefits for farmers and nations. China is a large agricultural country and at present is faced with a contradiction between economic rise and a vulnerable ecological environment; as a result, promoting appropriate sustainable agricultural technologies and developing sustainable agriculture are the only ways forward for China's agricultural development. Farmers are the tools for implementing a sustainable agricultural technology system in China, whose willingness, extent and efficiency to adopt sustainable agricultural technologies directly relate to the implementation effect of sustainable agricultural strategies. In this paper, farmers adoption of sustainable agricultural technologies was investigated by using 10 key sustainable agricultural technologies promoted among farmers by the Ministry of Agriculture of China as investigation objects and 308 farmers in Shandong Province as examples. This study discovered that the overall level of farmers adoption of sustainable agricultural technologies was relatively low in the sample areas, and the root causes included small-scale agricultural production, insufficient market demand for eco-agricultural products, inadequate agricultural technology extension efforts, farmers relatively low educational level, and so on. The present study considered that revolutionary reform must be carried out in China's agricultural production system. At the present stage, the most effective way is to organically combine governmental policies with market regulations so as to improve the farmers' net investment income of sustainable agricultural technologies as much as possible, thus enhancing their adoption of sustainable agricultural technologies.