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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Sustain. Food Syst.
Sec. Agroecology and Ecosystem Services
Volume 9 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fsufs.2025.1557224
E-commerce operation empowers green agriculture: Implication for the reduction of farmers' fertilizer usage
Provisionally accepted- 1Jiangxi Agricultural University, Nanchang, Jiangxi, China
- 2Lingnan Normal University, Zhanjiang, Guangdong, China
- 3The University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam, Hong Kong, SAR China
- 4Jiangxi Science and Technology Normal University, Nanchang, China
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Introduction: How e-commerce businesses improve farmers' fertilizer application (FFA) and reduced fertilizer application is of great practical significance.Using the data from the China Rural Revitalization Survey (CRRS) in 2020, the OLS and mediating effect models were exploited to explore the impact and mechanism of e-commerce operation (EO) on FFA by examining this heterogeneous effect. We further explored the differences in fertilizer reduction effects of different EO's scales and modes.The results show that e-commerce operation significantly negatively impacts farmers ' chemical fertilizer (CF), reducing CF's amount. The results of the mediating effect test show that agricultural machinery service plays an intermediary role in the influence of EO on FFA. The heterogeneity analysis shows that e-commerce operation has a heterogeneous impact on FFA regarding gender, agricultural functional zoning, and regional distribution. E-commerce operations can encourage women, major grain-producing areas, and farmers in the central and western regions to reduce fertilizer. Further discussion indicates that scale e-commerce and social e-commerce also perform the fertilizer reduction effect. Therefore, policy makers are suggested to encourage the transformation of rural industries into e-commerce to stimulate the production sector to reduce fertilizer use. These measures help developing countries balance economic growth and environmental protection, and promote sustainable ecological development.
Keywords: E-commerce operation, farmer household, Fertilizer Application, agricultural machinery service, sustainable development
Received: 03 Feb 2025; Accepted: 14 Apr 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Qiu, Huang, Zhang, bing, lan and Zhipeng. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Yuan Ruo lan, Jiangxi Science and Technology Normal University, Nanchang, China
wang Zhipeng, Jiangxi Agricultural University, Nanchang, 330029, Jiangxi, China
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.