Intentions of Farmers to Renew Productive Agricultural Service Contracts Using the Theory of Planned Behavior: An Empirical Study in Northeastern China
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
This manuscript is an interesting topic and has the potential to print in a valuable international journal like "Agriculture". It was my pleasure to read this article. It is well structured and provides new insight into policy makers' related research filed. There are some points if applying them, the manuscript has a good potential to accept and publish.
Page 1, line 30, the importance of food security should be further justified (See following references). Then, the relationship between renewable energy and food security will be presented in China.
https://doi.org/10.1111/1477-8947.12250
https://doi.org/10.3390/su14063634
https://doi.org/10.3389/fsufs.2021.691191
https://doi.org/10.1080/10371656.2021.1895471
The research problem is not clearly stated. What are the challenges in this field? What do the results of this study help to solve these challenges?
The benefits of renewable energy development in rural areas should be further explained in the Introduction.
Authors should also mention the effects of pesticides on human health. So, it can be use the following references in page 2, line 4-8:
https://doi.org/10.1186/s40360-022-00567-5
10.1186/s40550-022-00090-9
10.1080/1059924X.2020.1837316
10.1016/j.envres.2022.114002
Page 2, line 11-15, please revised as follows:
Page 3, line 126-133, why is theory of planned behavior chosen? What advantages does it have over other behavioral theories?
Page 3, line 23: Authors should cite applications of the theory of planned behavior (TPB) in other field and can use the following studies for improving applications of the TPB:
https://doi.org/10.1108/JKM-08-2021-0612
https://doi.org/10.1186/s13643-022-02034-y
https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-022-13796-4
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.techfore.2022.121726
https://doi.org/10.2166/ws.2021.138
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-021-13183-3
Why haven't you used path analysis or structural equation modeling to analyze theoretical framework?
Discussion section: The results need to be compared with more new research.
The conclusion section needs to be improved, also, more clearly and more linked you the main insights from the research. I consider it necessary that the conclusions section establishes more clearly the contributions of this work, which are not few. This will help to enhance the relevance of the work. In the Conclusion, the findings repeated again. In other words, main conclusion of the study had not been explained.
The limitations and future study should present after the conclusion and recommendations.
Author Response
Thank you for giving us a chance to improve the manuscript, entitled “Intentions of Farmers to Renew Productive Agricultural Service Contracts Using the Theory of Planned Behavior: An Empirical Study in Northeastern China” (ID: agriculture-1888830). We appreciate the constructive comments from anonymous reviewers, which are very helpful for us revising and improving our paper. We have studied the comments carefully and have made necessary corrections accordingly. We believe the manuscript has significantly improved.
To better show what has been changed, we enclose the manuscript in "Track Changes" mode. In addition, we summarize the point-by-point response as below. Note that the Lines numbers mentioned in the following responses are according to the revised manuscript. And our responses are marked in Blue.
Detailed responses to the reviewer’s comments:
Point 1-1: Page 1, line 30, the importance of food security should be further justified (See following references).
Response 1-1: We appreciate this comment. We now added this sentence and the reference between Lines 34 and 40
“Food security is a "cornerstone" for the smooth functioning of the political economy, the reduction of hunger and sustainable development. In the face of the multiple challenges of social and ecological changes, rural areas in developing and less developed countries such as China have been hit by a significant increase in the risk to farmers' livelihoods. The Chinese government is committed to maintaining a stable level of food production, which is an important measure to increase food self-sufficiency and ensure food security [1-4]”.
- Panezai, S., Saqib, S. E., Rahman, M. S., Ferdous, Z., Asghar, S., Ullah, A., & Ali, N. Rural households' food security and its determinants in coastal regions of Bangladesh. Natural Resources Forum 2022, 46, 200-220. https://doi.org/10.1111/1477-8947.12250
- Akbari, M., Foroudi, P., Shahmoradi, M., Padash, H., Parizi, Z. S., Khosravani, A., ... & Cuomo, M. T. The evolution of food security: where are we now, where should we go next?. Sustainability 2022, 14, 3634. https://doi.org/10.3390/su14063634
- Raj, S., Roodbar, S., Brinkley, C., & Wolfe, D. W. Food Security and Climate Change: Differences in impacts and adaptation strategies for rural communities in the Global South and North. Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems 2022, 5, 1-18. https://doi.org/10.3389/fsufs.2021.691191
- Ataei, P., Sadighi, H., & Izadi, N. Major challenges to achieving food security in rural, Iran. Rural Society 2021, 30, 15-31. https://doi.org/10.1080/10371656.2021.1895471
Point 1-2: The relationship between renewable energy and food security will be presented in China.
Response 1-2: Great idea! China is a large agricultural country, and to solve the problems of agriculture, rural areas and farmers, it is necessary to solve the problem of energy in rural areas. The traditional burning process of fuel wood and coal destroys the ecological balance and threatens the safety of food. Actively promoting clean energy such as biogas, straw gasification, small hydropower, solar energy and wind power in suitable areas will improve the quality of agricultural production and be more conducive to food security. This is a very good research direction! However, the core of this study revolves around the behavior of farmers renewing their contracts for productive agricultural services, exploring the role of this stable cooperative model in guaranteeing food security. The impact of renewable energy on food security is a very good topic for future research.
Point 2-1: The research problem is not clearly stated. What are the challenges in this field? What do the results of this study help to solve these challenges?
Response 2-1: Thank you for this valuable suggestion. We have rewritten the sentence between Lines 81 and 98.
“However, in the research team's preliminary study of farmers in northeastern China, we unexpectedly found that 95% of farmers used APS, but only 56% were willing to maintain this partnership, and less than 20% of them had long-term cooperation with professional service organizations. Unstable and unregulated APS contractual relationships not only bring "friction" in the transaction process and increase transaction costs, but also are not conducive to long-term investment and large-scale operation of service providers, which is a key obstacle to the high-quality development of APS organizations in China. Therefore, how to encourage farmers to actively adopt APS on the basis of safeguarding farmers' interests and matching farmers' needs and willingness has become the focus and difficulty of vigorously promoting the high-quality and efficient development of APS. By tracing the formation mechanism of farmers' willingness to renew APS, this study can more precisely identify the main factors affecting the stability of cooperative relationships between farmers and service providers, reduce the transaction costs of both parties in the transaction process, and improve the efficiency of cooperation, which is a powerful guarantee for achieving large-scale agricultural production and operation. In addition, a stable contractual relationship will motivate service subjects to improve service quality autonomously and better promote the healthy development of APS industry.”
Point 2-2: The benefits of renewable energy development in rural areas should be further explained in the Introduction.
Response 2-2: Thanks for this suggestion. The development of renewable energy is important for economic development, ecological maintenance, and food security in rural areas of both developing and less developed countries. This is an important direction for future research, however, this study is currently focused on farmers' behavioral intentions and has not focused on the important impacts of renewable energy for the time being. We will pay close attention to the issue of renewable energy in rural areas in our next studies and field research. Again, we express our deep gratitude and sincerely.
Point 2-3: Authors should also mention the effects of pesticides on human health. So, it can be use the following references in page 2, line 4-8:
Response 2-3: We appreciate this comment. We have read the four articles you recommended very carefully and have thought about them in depth. As an agrochemical with injurious effects, pesticides can contaminate crops when applied, thereby jeopardizing food safety issues in primary agricultural products and seriously endangering human health. This is a very important direction for future research, however, our current study centered on farmers' willingness to renew their contracts during the APS contract period and has not yet focused on the area of human health behavior. This is a topic well worth exploring in depth in future research, as agrochemicals are closely related to human health, nutritional intake, etc., and are important influences in enhancing farmer well-being. Again, we express our deep appreciation for your comments.
Point 3: Page 2, line 11-15, please revised as follows:
Response 3: I'm terribly sorry, we don't understand the meaning of this sentence. Could you point it out more clearly? Thank you very much!
Point 4-1: Page 3, line 126-133, why is theory of planned behavior chosen? What advantages does it have over other behavioral theories?
Response 4-1: Thanks. This is an important comment. After considering the logical, coherent and systematic aspects, we have now added these five sentences on page 3, between lines 144-148 and page 4, between lines 189-204, respectively.
“Farmer's renewal behavior is a special behavior with a longer interval and non-immediate nature, and the generation of this willing behavior undergoes a complex and diverse psychological process, while being subject to the influence of a variety of external factors. Integrating psychology into the study will have stronger persuasive and explanatory power.”
“Compared with other behavioral theories, such as self-determination theory, deviant behavior theory, and S-O-R theory, TPB's explanation of individual behavior not only considers objective factors directly related to farmers' immediate interests, such as perceptual behavioral control, but also incorporates conceptual and psychological non-rational factors, such as farmers' behavioral attitudes and subjective norms, into the framework of decision analysis, which better reflects the assumption of limited rationality of individual behavior, and at the same time also extremely strongly demonstrates the strength of individual attitudes to explain specific behaviors. In this study, contract renewal behavior, as a continuation of contracting behavior, is a manifestation of interterm behavior, which has its own uniqueness. The analysis from a psycho-logical perspective can better "capture" the complex and variable process of farmers' intentions during the contract-renewal period. Therefore, this study attempts to combine the perspectives of economics and psychology based on the analytical framework of TPB, and expects to provide a strong explanation of the formation process of individual behavioral intentions, so that it can reflect the psychological process and influencing factors of farmers' renewal of APS in a comprehensive manner.”
Point 4-2: Page 3, line 23: Authors should cite applications of the theory of planned behavior (TPB) in other field and can use the following studies for improving applications of the TPB:
Response 4-2: Thank you for this comment. We have carefully read the six papers you recommended, which are very recent and apply the theory of planned behavior from multiple disciplines and perspectives to explain the mechanisms that generate different behaviors in individuals. We have "borrowed" the literature you selected for inclusion in the references [31-36]. We now add the following sentence on page 4, lines 173-188
“Worldwide, academic research based on the TPB framework has been widely applied in environmental sciences, economics, psychology, medicine, sociology, and many interdisciplinary disciplines. For example, Shirahada et al. conducted studies on volunteer behavior, mental health help-seeking behavior, and oral health protection behavior, confirming the important role of elements such as social norms in the process of will formation [31-33]. Due to the close connection between agricultural decision making and social psychology, numerous agricultural economists and social psychologists have applied the theory of planned behavior to the field of agricultural research. For example, Yang and Damalas et al. have analyzed the process of forming farmers' behavioral intentions such as low-carbon technology adoption and pesticide reduction application and the influencing factors based on the TPB framework, and affirmed the important role generated by elements such as behavioral attitudes [34-36]. Existing studies have achieved many valuable academic results in various disciplines using the TPB framework, which has laid a solid foundation for this paper to investigate the mechanism of farmers' willingness to renew their contracts.”
Point 5: Why haven't you used path analysis or structural equation modeling to analyze theoretical framework?
Response 5: We appreciate this valuable comment from you. In this study, farmers' "willingness to renew" falls into two consecutive decision stages. The first stage examines whether the farmer has signed up for APS; the second stage examines whether the farmer has made a decision to renew his contract. If farmers did not sign up in the first stage, their willingness to renew could not be obtained; only if farmers had signed up for APS could their willingness to renew be effectively collected. The Heckman two-stage model can effectively reduce the impact of the sample self-selection problem, and since farmers' willingness to renew is a binary variable with values of 0 and 1, the Heckman two-step method can be used for analysis. The structural equation model is an excellent model! The model is a multivariate statistical model containing the relationship between latent variables, observed variables, and error variables, which can effectively deal with the structural relationship between multiple variables and overcome the problem of covariance between independent variables, and can effectively reflect the causal relationship between latent and observed variables. In the next stage of our similar research, we will try to use structural equation modeling with Amos software for path analysis, which is a very classical research method and will be very helpful for our future research. Thanks again!
Point 6: Discussion section: The results need to be compared with more new research.
Response 6: Thanks. This is a very important comment. We now have added the following sentence on page 16, lines 617-633
5.1. Integration with previous studies
“Research on the issue of agricultural contracting is now mostly focused on farmers' behavior in purchasing APS, farmers signing agricultural orders, and leasing and transferring agricultural land [47-49]. For example, Vicol et al. developed a study on the mechanisms of uneven distribution of power relations in contract farming, revisiting issues that still exist or re-emerge in the academic research literature on contract farming [50]. Similarly, Cole suggests that the role of traders in contract farming inadvertently brings about agricultural extension and infrastructure upgrading that invariably boosts the livelihood levels of farmers in remote areas [51]. Hambloch quantifies contractual violations as secondary agency behavior or daily resistance, and thus examines the detrimental effects of such violations on the maintenance of a stable contractual relationship [52]. Prowse explored the role of contractual change in affecting household welfare using the example of central Malawi [53]. Yoshioka examined what role the strength of collaborative commitment plays in the renewal process of long-term university-industry contracts [54]. Regarding the renewal of contracts, existing studies have not yet turned their attention to the agricultural sector. Compared to the existing literature, this study may have the following marginal contributions.”
Point 7: The conclusion section needs to be improved, also, more clearly and more linked you the main insights from the research. I consider it necessary that the conclusions section establishes more clearly the contributions of this work, which are not few. This will help to enhance the relevance of the work. In the Conclusion, the findings repeated again. In other words, main conclusion of the study had not been explained.
Response 7: We agree. Thanks for this important comment. We have further strengthened the interpretation of the main findings of the study. We now insert the following sentence on page 16, between line 656 and page 17, line 709
5.2. Theoretical implications
“The results of the study showed that, first, behavioral attitudes had a significant "stimulating" effect on farmers' motivation to renew their APS. The stronger the farmers' behavioral attitudes, the more inclined they are, the stronger their willingness to renew their contracts. In particular, the value of the coefficient of influence of behavioral attitudes in the regression results is the highest among all latent variables, which further indicates that farmers' behavioral attitudes have an important influence on the generation of renewal intentions. Those farmers who had access to APS at more reasonable prices and higher returns were more likely to have the idea of renewing their service. The results obtained in this study are consistent with the findings of many previous studies based on the TPB framework [55-56]. However, the research perspective of this study is the renewal behavior in the agricultural sector.
Second, this study found that both subjective norms and service immediacy "inhibited" farmers' willingness to renew their contracts at the 1% significance level. In comparison, the coefficient of influence of subjective norms is greater. This suggests that the closeness of the relationship between farmers and the people around them, who can influence their decisions, is a key factor that weakens farmers' willingness to renew their subscriptions. This is because close community ties increase unpaid cooperation among farmers, which in turn reduces farmers' demand for other service providers. In addition, service content satisfaction has a positive effect on farmers' willingness to renew their contracts. A plausible explanation is that the higher farmers' satisfaction with the service content, the less willing they are to change service providers or terminate the purchase of APS.
Third, the study verified that the size of the cultivated land has a "disincentive" effect on farmers' behavior of signing APS. This indicates that farmers with larger acreage have also reached a certain level of business scale, and they have sufficient conditions to own a certain number of agricultural fixed assets, including agricultural machinery. Therefore, their demand for APS is weaker than that of small-scale farmers. In addition, the higher the acreage yield, the poorer the topographic conditions, and the more attractive the secondary and tertiary employment in their area, the greater their need for APS. This indicates that the greater the workload, especially in the harvesting segment where the applicability of agricultural mechanization is higher, the less accessible the farmers are, the more difficult it is to complete the agricultural labor by themselves and, therefore, the more willing they are to renew their APS subscriptions. thus, releasing labor for higher-paying secondary and tertiary production activities.”
5.3. Practical implications
The perspective chosen for this study is the willingness of farmers to renew their contracts in APS, and the reason for choosing this direction is China's current national situation of "big country, small farmers". The development of APS can bridge the gap between small-scale farmers and agricultural modernization by reducing the gap in agricultural equipment, production technology, and management tools. The research team's investigation found that the development of APS suffers from an inconsistent degree of contractual standardization and unstable interest linkages. This leads both farmers and service providers to spend a lot of transaction costs each year to find cooperation partners, and how to improve the stability of the contract between the two parties becomes an urgent issue, which is related to the stable development of the APS industry. Our research results show that in the APS partnership, the standardized, systematic, and scientific qualities of the service organization stimulate the farmers' demand for contract renewal. This suggests that it is not sufficient to continue the partnership only with "contract labor" services. These findings imply that service organizations and governments should focus on optimizing services from a supply-side perspective. Other researchers have argued that farmers' preferences in terms of price, marketing and payment methods, quality levels, and upfront investment needs influence their contractual choice behavior [57-58].
Point 8: The limitations and future study should present after the conclusion and recommendations.
Response 8: Thank you for this comment. We have revised the limitations and future study in line 850 and 896.
“This study also has the following urgent need for improvement. First, when we developed our analysis using the TPB framework, farmers' subjective norms, perceptual behavioral control, and attitudinal intentions were difficult to observe directly be-cause it involved quantifying farmers' psychological processes. Although this study constructs a two-stage theoretical analytical framework of "contract-renewal," further learning is needed to enable a more appropriate expression of willingness formation mechanisms [59-61]. Second, due to time constraints, the selection of the research area for this study remained limited when conducting the fieldwork, although the research team has fully satisfied the typicality and representativeness of the data and could still expand the scope of the research at a later stage. Since we interviewed three major grain-producing provinces in the survey, the sample size of the survey met the needs of the study and did not affect the accuracy and reliability of the results, and some existing agricultural studies have the same survey area [62-64]. Third, because the re-search team only started to systematically investigate farmers' APS renewals in 2018, this study used only one year of cross-sectional data, which makes it difficult to reflect more clearly the dynamic change process under the time series. Future follow-up surveys can be conducted to develop further systematic research with panel data. Fourth, APS as a service functional industry, its development issue involves several related subjects, and farmers are only the audience of the service, besides, service providers, farms, agricultural suppliers, government and other subjects are also involved. This study only analyzes the problem about APS purchase and renewal from the farmers' perspective, and further research will strengthen the study of inter-subject game and other aspects in further research.”
“In the coming period, in-depth research can be conducted on the following aspects. First, the quantification of farmers' psychological processes should be further optimized by using a more standard form of Likert scale for question optimization, and also by using a randomized intervention experiment that integrates the special nature of different official sensory channels such as pictures, audio, and video to carry out tracking research activities. Second, expand the research area. In addition to the three northeastern provinces of China, Shandong Province as well as the Yangtze River Delta region are typical and important grain-producing bases, and also more suitable for the development of APS industry due to the advantages brought by topography and crop types. Therefore, in the next study, the research team can conduct sampling surveys in several large grain-producing bases to observe the dynamic changes in specific behavioral decisions of farmers and service providers, to clarify the heterogeneous effects of regional environmental differences, and to make the link between academic research and national policies closer. Third, a tracking survey is used to conduct multiple periods of research over a continuous period of time. Thus, the data in this field can be systematically mastered and panel data can be formed to lay the foundation for later studies on topics such as dynamic changes in behavioral intentions and deviations between intentions and behaviors. Fourth, in terms of research perspective, the research can be conducted from the perspective of multiple subjects and disciplines, and the research related to APS can involve various interdisciplinary disciplines such as economics, psychology, sociology, etc. In the future research, structural equation modeling and system dynamics modeling can be used to analyze various methods. In order to achieve the goal of more scientific and accurate identification or prediction of each subject's decision-making behavior, so that the formulation of relevant policies can be more efficient and accurate.”
Special thanks to you for your good comments. We tried our best to improve the manuscript and made some changes in the manuscript. It is hoped that the correction will meet with approval.
Once again, thank you very much for your comments and suggestions.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
The article is very interesting, The introduction is very complete, and using a newest references, the theory is very good explain contract theory, the number of sample is quite enough to explain the real condition in Northeastern China. The analysis very suitable to answer the research objective, the authors can explain the reason why using this analysis. The Results is very good and the discussion is deep, but the authors need to add some references related with the article. The Conclusion is very suitable enough and already answer the research objectives. This article is suitable and fit with scope of the journal.
Author Response
Thank you for giving us a chance to improve the manuscript, entitled “ Intentions of Farmers to Renew Productive Agricultural Service Contracts Using the Theory of Planned Behavior: An Empirical Study in Northeastern China” (ID: agriculture-1888830). We appreciate the constructive comments from anonymous reviewers, which are very helpful for us revising and improving our paper. We have studied the comments carefully and have made necessary corrections accordingly. We believe the manuscript has significantly improved.
To better show what has been changed, we enclose the manuscript in "Track Changes" mode. In addition, we summarize the point-by-point response as below. Note that the Lines numbers mentioned in the following responses are according to the revised manuscript. And our responses are marked in Blue.
Detailed responses to the reviewer’s comments:
Point: The Results is very good and the discussion is deep, but the authors need to add some references related with the article.
Response: We appreciate your acknowledgement and encouragement of our research results. We have added some references as follows.
[1] Panezai, S., Saqib, S. E., Rahman, M. S., Ferdous, Z., Asghar, S., Ullah, A., & Ali, N. Rural households' food security and its determinants in coastal regions of Bangladesh. Natural Resources Forum 2022, 46, 200-220. https://doi.org/10.1111/1477-8947.12250
[2] Akbari, M., Foroudi, P., Shahmoradi, M., Padash, H., Parizi, Z. S., Khosravani, A., ... & Cuomo, M. T. The evolution of food security: where are we now, where should we go next?. Sustainability 2022, 14, 3634. https://doi.org/10.3390/su14063634
[3] Raj, S., Roodbar, S., Brinkley, C., & Wolfe, D. W. Food Security and Climate Change: Differences in impacts and adaptation strategies for rural communities in the Global South and North. Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems 2022, 5, 1-18. https://doi.org/10.3389/fsufs.2021.691191
[4] Ataei, P., Sadighi, H., & Izadi, N. Major challenges to achieving food security in rural, Iran. Rural Society 2021, 30, 15-31. https://doi.org/10.1080/10371656.2021.1895471
[31] Shirahada, K., & Zhang, Y. Counterproductive knowledge behavior in volunteer work: perspectives from the theory of planned behavior and well-being theory. Journal of Knowledge Management 2021, 26, 22-41. https://doi.org/10.1108/JKM-08-2021-0612
[32] Adams, C., Gringart, E., & Strobel, N. Explaining adults’ mental health help-seeking through the lens of the theory of planned behavior: a scoping review. Systematic reviews 2022, 11, 1-16. https://doi.org/10.1186/s13643-022-02034-y
[33] Rajeh, M. T. Modeling the theory of planned behavior to predict adults’ intentions to improve oral health behaviors. BMC Public Health 2022, 22, 1-9. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-022-13796-4
[34] Yang, X., Zhou, X., & Deng, X. Modeling farmers’ adoption of low-carbon agricultural technology in Jianghan Plain, China: An examination of the theory of planned behavior. Technological Forecasting and Social Change 2022, 180, 121726. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.techfore.2022.121726
[35] Mahdavi, T. Application of the ‘theory of planned behavior’to understand farmers’ intentions to accept water policy options using structural equation modeling. Water Supply 2021, 21, 2720-2734. https://doi.org/10.2166/ws.2021.138
[36] Damalas, C. A. Farmers’ intention to reduce pesticide use: The role of perceived risk of loss in the model of the planned behavior theory. Environmental Science and Pollution Research 2021, 28, 35278-35285. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-021-13183-3
[46] Feng, Y., Hu, Y., & He, L. Research on coordination of fresh agricultural product supply chain considering fresh-keeping effort level under retailer risk avoidance. Discrete Dynamics in Nature and Society 2021, 2021, 1-15. https://doi.org/10.1155/2021/5527215
[47] Okello, D., Owuor, G., Larochelle, C., Gathungu, E., & Mshenga, P. Determinants of utilization of agricultural technologies among smallholder dairy farmers in Kenya. Journal of Agriculture and Food Research 2021, 6, 100213. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jafr.2021.100213
[48] Dubbert, C., & Abdulai, A. Does the contract type matter? Impact of marketing and production contracts on cashew farmers’ farm performance in Ghana. Journal of Agricultural & Food Industrial Organization 2022, 20, 119-134. https://doi.org/10.1515/jafio-2020-0040
[49] Vicol, M., Fold, N., Hambloch, C., Narayanan, S., & Pérez Niño, H. Twenty‐five years of Living Under Contract: Contract farming and agrarian change in the developing world. Journal of Agrarian Change 2022, 22, 3-18. https://doi.org/10.1111/joac.12471
[50] Cole, R. Cashing in or driving development? Cross‐border traders and maize contract farming in northeast Laos. Journal of Agrarian Change 2022, 22, 139-161. https://doi.org/10.1111/joac.12460
[51] Hambloch, C. Contract farming and everyday acts of resistance: Oil palm contract farmers in the Philippines. Journal of Agrarian Change 2022, 22, 58-76. https://doi.org/10.1111/joac.12462
[52] Prowse, M. Tobacco contract farming, crop diversification and household relations in the central region of Malawi. Journal of Southern African Studies 2022, 48, 355-374. https://doi.org/10.1080/03057070.2022.2043653
[53] Yoshioka-Kobayashi, T., & Takahashi, M. Determinants of Contract Renewals in University–Industry Contract Research: Going my Way, or Good Sam?. University-Industry Knowledge Interactions 2022, 52, 89-110. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-84669-5_6
[54] Coşkun, A., & Özbük, R. M. Y. What influences consumer food waste behavior in restaurants? An application of the extended theory of planned behavior. Waste Management 2020, 117, 170-178. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wasman.2020.08.011
[55] Singh, G., Sharma, S., Sharma, R., & Dwivedi, Y. K. Investigating environmental sustainability in small family-owned businesses: Integration of religiosity, ethical judgment, and theory of planned behavior. Technological Forecasting and Social Change 2021, 173, 121094. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.techfore.2021.121094
[56] Hung Anh, N., Bokelmann, W., Thi Thuan, N., Thi Nga, D., & Van Minh, N. Smallholders’ Preferences for Different Contract Farming Models: Empirical Evidence from Sustainable Certified Coffee Production in Vietnam. Sustainability 2019, 11, 3799. https://doi.org/10.3390/su11143799
[57] Das, N., de Janvry, A., & Sadoulet, E. Credit and land contracting: A test of the theory of sharecropping. American Journal of Agricultural Economics 2019, 101, 1098-1114. https://doi.org/10.1093/ajae/aaz005
[64] Gao, H., Zhang, Y., Xu, C., & Yang, Y. Towards a Sustainable Grain Production Network: An Empirical Study from Northeast China. Sustainability 2022, 14, 8849. https://doi.org/10.3390/su1414884
After reviewing the relevant literature, we promptly updated the original manuscript with outdated dates. "[40] Liu, D., Wang, Z., Zhang, B., Song, K., Li, X., Li, J., ... & Duan, H. Spatial distribution of soil organic carbon and analysis of related factors in croplands of the black soil region, Northeast China. Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment 2006, 113, 73-81. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agee.2005.09.006" has been removed and replaced with
“[62] Sun, Z., Zhao, L., Wang, S., Zhang, H., Wang, X., & Wan, Z. Targeted poverty alleviation and households’ livelihood strategy in a relation-based society: Evidence from northeast China. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 2021, 18, 1747. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18041747”
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 3 Report
1. Abstract needs describe the purpose and value of the research.
2. Please add research hypotheses to the article.
3. The literatures are not enough, the TPB application literatures should be added in section 2. The literature should be updated to recent article.
4. What is the basis of the research questionnaire? Please explain.
5. It is recommended to add the suggestion and implication part of the paper. Limitations of the research and future research possibilities should be presented in conclusions’ section.
Author Response
Thank you for giving us a chance to improve the manuscript, entitled “Intentions of Farmers to Renew Productive Agricultural Service Contracts Using the Theory of Planned Behavior: An Empirical Study in Northeastern China” (ID: agriculture-1888830). We appreciate the constructive comments from anonymous reviewers, which are very helpful for us revising and improving our paper. We have studied the comments carefully and have made necessary corrections accordingly. We believe the manuscript has significantly improved.
To better show what has been changed, we enclose the manuscript in "Track Changes" mode. In addition, we summarize the point-by-point response as below. Note that the Lines numbers mentioned in the following responses are according to the revised manuscript. And our responses are marked in Blue.
Detailed responses to the reviewer’s comments:
Point 1: Abstract needs describe the purpose and value of the research.
Response 1: We sincerely thank you for this suggestion. We have revised this sentence accordingly (line10-14).
“Maintaining stable linkages between farmers and APS service providers is conducive to cutting transaction costs, increasing service organizations' willingness to invest in the long term and motivation to innovate on their own, improving agricultural production and resource use efficiency, and safeguarding farmers' welfare and national food security. The willingness of farmers to renew their contracts is a key factor in long-term APS partnerships.”
Point 2: Please add research hypotheses to the article.
Response 2: Thank you. We add the following sentence on page 6, lines 270-273
"Based on the above analysis, hypothesis 1 is proposed: Hypothesis 1. Perceived behavioral control has a significant positive effect on farmers' willingness to renew their contracts."
We add the following sentence on page 6, lines 288-291
"Based on the above analysis, hypothesis 2 is proposed: Hypothesis 2. Subjective norms have a significant inhibitory effect on farmers' willingness to renew their contracts."
We add the following sentence on page 7, lines 304-308
"Based on the above analysis, hypothesis 3 is proposed: Hypothesis 3. Behavioral attitudes have a significant positive effect on farmers' willingness to renew their contracts."
Point 3: The literatures are not enough, the TPB application literatures should be added in section 2. The literature should be updated to recent article.
Response 3: Thank you for this comment. We have added the following sentence in line 173 and 188
“Worldwide, academic research based on the TPB framework has been widely applied in environmental sciences, economics, psychology, medicine, sociology, and many interdisciplinary disciplines. For example, Shirahada et al. conducted studies on volunteer behavior, mental health help-seeking behavior, and oral health protection behavior, confirming the important role of elements such as social norms in the process of will formation [31-33]. Due to the close connection between agricultural decision making and social psychology, numerous agricultural economists and social psychologists have applied the theory of planned behavior to the field of agricultural research. For example, Yang and Damalas et al. have analyzed the process of forming farmers' behavioral intentions such as low-carbon technology adoption and pesticide reduction application and the influencing factors based on the TPB framework, and affirmed the important role generated by elements such as behavioral attitudes [34-36]. Existing studies have achieved many valuable academic results in various disciplines using the TPB framework, which has laid a solid foundation for this paper to investigate the mechanism of farmers' willingness to renew their contracts.”
[31]Shirahada, K., & Zhang, Y. Counterproductive knowledge behavior in volunteer work: perspectives from the theory of planned behavior and well-being theory. Journal of Knowledge Management 2021, 26, 22-41. https://doi.org/10.1108/JKM-08-2021-0612
[32]Adams, C., Gringart, E., & Strobel, N. Explaining adults’ mental health help-seeking through the lens of the theory of planned behavior: a scoping review. Systematic reviews 2022, 11, 1-16. https://doi.org/10.1186/s13643-022-02034-y
[33]Rajeh, M. T. Modeling the theory of planned behavior to predict adults’ intentions to improve oral health behaviors. BMC Public Health 2022, 22, 1-9. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-022-13796-4
[34]Yang, X., Zhou, X., & Deng, X. Modeling farmers’ adoption of low-carbon agricultural technology in Jianghan Plain, China: An examination of the theory of planned behavior. Technological Forecasting and Social Change 2022, 180, 121726. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.techfore.2022.121726
[35]Mahdavi, T. Application of the ‘theory of planned behavior’to understand farmers’ intentions to accept water policy options using structural equation modeling. Water Supply 2021, 21, 2720-2734. https://doi.org/10.2166/ws.2021.138
[36]Damalas, C. A. Farmers’ intention to reduce pesticide use: The role of perceived risk of loss in the model of the planned behavior theory. Environmental Science and Pollution Research 2021, 28, 35278-35285. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-021-13183-3
Point 4: What is the basis of the research questionnaire? Please explain.
Response 4: Good point. We have added the explain in line 335 and 337.
Point 5-1: It is recommended to add the suggestion part of the paper.
Response 5-1: Great suggestion. We have added the suggestion in line 775 and 838
“First, the development of the APS industry in rural China is uneven and inadequate, and how to bring the supply and demand relationship closer to a steady state is an urgent issue to be addressed. Service providers, as rational actors, are not conducive to long-term planning, investment and technological innovation by engaging in short-term transactions with farmers or frequently changing their customer base. Service providers should not only grasp the market dynamics of service prices, but also do their market due diligence to update farmers' new demand elements in a timely manner, so that service content diversification and price rationalization can coexist. From the supply-side perspective, we can meet farmers' diversified and highly efficient service needs, achieve technological innovation and industry chain extension, enhance farmers' service satisfaction, and promote a stable cooperative relationship between the two parties. Thus, it shortens the time spent by farmers in intermediate steps such as finding service providers, negotiating service terms and monitoring services, improves transaction efficiency, and reduces frictional costs in the transaction process. Incentivize service providers to continuously improve the technical level of agricultural production and the level of scientific and standardized production.
Second, although the influence of "kinship" in rural areas has "crowded out" the development of APS through unpaid mutual aid among farmers. However, this non-contractual form of mutual aid often generates a certain degree of disputes. The lack of necessary legal protection makes it difficult for farmers to defend their rights. Therefore, APS supply organizations should improve the transparency and circulation of service information, develop standardized contract templates, delineate responsibilities and obligations, and enhance scientific rigor. In the process of participating in APS, farmers are in a vulnerable position in terms of information and disputes due to the constraints of their own knowledge level, backward communication equipment and low information collection level. While rectifying the atmosphere of the service market, the relevant local departments should popularize legal rights education through door-to-door publicity and distribution of manuals. Safeguard farmers' property security and improve the credibility of services.
Third, the government should relax the financial constraints on farmers and in-crease microcredit services. In considering the contracting and renewal process of APS, farmers are not only cautious about transaction risks, but also constrained by their own financial constraints. This study confirms that farmers with stronger behavioral attitudes are more positive about renewing APS, while their own economic conditions constrain farmers' decision-making behavior, and the worse their economic conditions are, the lower their willingness to renew APS. Government departments should relax the conditions and lower the threshold to encourage farmers to use various ways to carry out agricultural production and business activities, so as to reduce their psycho-logical and economic burdens. In addition, the government and relevant departments should strengthen the habitat of villages, arrange roads rationally, encourage the leveling of cultivated land, and promote to farmers to avoid frequent crop changes as much as possible to maintain a stable level of grain production. The secondary and tertiary industries should also be further developed to promote the effective allocation of human capital.”
Point 5-2: It is recommended to add the implication part of the paper.
Response 5-2: Great suggestion. We have rewritten the Discussion.
“5.1. Integration with previous studies
Research on the issue of agricultural contracting is now mostly focused on farmers' behavior in purchasing APS, farmers signing agricultural orders, and leasing and transferring agricultural land [47-49]. For example, Vicol et al. developed a study on the mechanisms of uneven distribution of power relations in contract farming, revisiting issues that still exist or re-emerge in the academic research literature on contract farming [50]. Similarly, Cole suggests that the role of traders in contract farming inadvertently brings about agricultural extension and infrastructure upgrading that invariably boosts the livelihood levels of farmers in remote areas [51]. Hambloch quantifies contractual violations as secondary agency behavior or daily resistance, and thus examines the detrimental effects of such violations on the maintenance of a stable contractual relationship [52]. Prowse explored the role of contractual change in affecting household welfare using the example of central Malawi [53]. Yoshioka examined what role the strength of collaborative commitment plays in the renewal process of long-term university-industry contracts [54]. Regarding the renewal of contracts, existing studies have not yet turned their attention to the agricultural sector. Compared to the existing literature, this study may have the following marginal contributions. First of all, from the perspective of the study, this study focuses on farmers in Northeast China, who are the basic unit of participation in APS decision-making and the main audience group of the service. Most of the existing studies focus on macroscopic influencing factors of APS development or superficial influencing factors of farmers, ignoring the subtle changes of farmers' psychology and the complete process of decision-making mechanism. In addition, farmers' cognitive preferences, willingness to participate and stabilized cooperative relationships are the prerequisites and foundations for the continuous enrichment and development of APS. Second, in terms of research content, the decision-making process of farmers renewing APS is systematically analyzed, the main factors affecting farmers' willingness to renew are identified, and the influencing mechanism between variables at different levels is revealed. In addition, the focus of the study on the willingness to renew the contract broke through the research limitations of the existing literature on the act of contracting only. Maintaining good and stable cooperative relations can not only improve agricultural production efficiency, but also drive service providers to invest in technological innovation. Third, in terms of research methods, this study constructs a logical framework diagram and research path hypothesis based on the two-stage "contract-renewal" and the theoretical framework of planned behavior. The theoretical analysis framework and research assumptions were then demonstrated using field research data. It can provide new research ideas for other related researches on APS.
5.2. Theoretical implications
The results of the study showed that, first, behavioral attitudes had a significant "stimulating" effect on farmers' motivation to renew their APS. The stronger the farmers' behavioral attitudes, the more inclined they are, the stronger their willingness to renew their contracts. In particular, the value of the coefficient of influence of behavioral attitudes in the regression results is the highest among all latent variables, which further indicates that farmers' behavioral attitudes have an important influence on the generation of renewal intentions. Those farmers who had access to APS at more reasonable prices and higher returns were more likely to have the idea of renewing their service. The results obtained in this study are consistent with the findings of many previous studies based on the TPB framework [55-56]. However, the research perspective of this study is the renewal behavior in the agricultural sector.
Second, this study found that both subjective norms and service immediacy "inhibited" farmers' willingness to renew their contracts at the 1% significance level. In comparison, the coefficient of influence of subjective norms is greater. This suggests that the closeness of the relationship between farmers and the people around them, who can influence their decisions, is a key factor that weakens farmers' willingness to renew their subscriptions. This is because close community ties increase unpaid cooperation among farmers, which in turn reduces farmers' demand for other service providers. In addition, service content satisfaction has a positive effect on farmers' willingness to renew their contracts. A plausible explanation is that the higher farmers' satisfaction with the service content, the less willing they are to change service providers or terminate the purchase of APS.
Third, the study verified that the size of the cultivated land has a "disincentive" effect on farmers' behavior of signing APS. This indicates that farmers with larger acreage have also reached a certain level of business scale, and they have sufficient conditions to own a certain number of agricultural fixed assets, including agricultural machinery. Therefore, their demand for APS is weaker than that of small-scale farmers. In addition, the higher the acreage yield, the poorer the topographic conditions, and the more attractive the secondary and tertiary employment in their area, the greater their need for APS. This indicates that the greater the workload, especially in the harvesting segment where the applicability of agricultural mechanization is higher, the less accessible the farmers are, the more difficult it is to complete the agricultural labor by themselves and, therefore, the more willing they are to renew their APS subscriptions. thus, releasing labor for higher-paying secondary and tertiary production activities.
5.3. Practical implications
The perspective chosen for this study is the willingness of farmers to renew their contracts in APS, and the reason for choosing this direction is China's current national situation of "big country, small farmers". The development of APS can bridge the gap between small-scale farmers and agricultural modernization by reducing the gap in agricultural equipment, production technology, and management tools. The research team's investigation found that the development of APS suffers from an inconsistent degree of contractual standardization and unstable interest linkages. This leads both farmers and service providers to spend a lot of transaction costs each year to find cooperation partners, and how to improve the stability of the contract between the two parties becomes an urgent issue, which is related to the stable development of the APS industry. Our research results show that in the APS partnership, the standardized, systematic, and scientific qualities of the service organization stimulate the farmers' demand for contract renewal. This suggests that it is not sufficient to continue the partnership only with "contract labor" services. These findings imply that service organizations and governments should focus on optimizing services from a supply-side perspective. Other researchers have argued that farmers' preferences in terms of price, marketing and payment methods, quality levels, and upfront investment needs influence their contractual choice behavior [57-58].”
Point 5-3: Limitations of the research and future research possibilities should be presented in conclusions’ section.
Response 5-3: This is a good point. We have largely rewritten limitations of the research and future research possibilities in line 850 and 896
“This study also has the following urgent need for improvement. First, when we developed our analysis using the TPB framework, farmers' subjective norms, perceptual behavioral control, and attitudinal intentions were difficult to observe directly be-cause it involved quantifying farmers' psychological processes. Although this study constructs a two-stage theoretical analytical framework of "contract-renewal," further learning is needed to enable a more appropriate expression of willingness formation mechanisms [59-61]. Second, due to time constraints, the selection of the research area for this study remained limited when conducting the fieldwork, although the research team has fully satisfied the typicality and representativeness of the data and could still expand the scope of the research at a later stage. Since we interviewed three major grain-producing provinces in the survey, the sample size of the survey met the needs of the study and did not affect the accuracy and reliability of the results, and some existing agricultural studies have the same survey area [62-64]. Third, because the re-search team only started to systematically investigate farmers' APS renewals in 2018, this study used only one year of cross-sectional data, which makes it difficult to reflect more clearly the dynamic change process under the time series. Future follow-up surveys can be conducted to develop further systematic research with panel data. Fourth, APS as a service functional industry, its development issue involves several related subjects, and farmers are only the audience of the service, besides, service providers, farms, agricultural suppliers, government and other subjects are also involved. This study only analyzes the problem about APS purchase and renewal from the farmers' perspective, and further research will strengthen the study of inter-subject game and other aspects in further research.”
“In the coming period, in-depth research can be conducted on the following aspects. First, the quantification of farmers' psychological processes should be further optimized by using a more standard form of Likert scale for question optimization, and also by using a randomized intervention experiment that integrates the special nature of different official sensory channels such as pictures, audio, and video to carry out tracking research activities. Second, expand the research area. In addition to the three northeastern provinces of China, Shandong Province as well as the Yangtze River Delta region are typical and important grain-producing bases, and also more suitable for the development of APS industry due to the advantages brought by topography and crop types. Therefore, in the next study, the research team can conduct sampling surveys in several large grain-producing bases to observe the dynamic changes in specific behavioral decisions of farmers and service providers, to clarify the heterogeneous effects of regional environmental differences, and to make the link between academic research and national policies closer. Third, a tracking survey is used to conduct multiple periods of research over a continuous period of time. Thus, the data in this field can be systematically mastered and panel data can be formed to lay the foundation for later studies on topics such as dynamic changes in behavioral intentions and deviations between intentions and behaviors. Fourth, in terms of research perspective, the research can be conducted from the perspective of multiple subjects and disciplines, and the research related to APS can involve various interdisciplinary disciplines such as economics, psychology, sociology, etc. In the future research, structural equation modeling and system dynamics modeling can be used to analyze various methods. In order to achieve the goal of more scientific and accurate identification or prediction of each subject's decision-making behavior, so that the formulation of relevant policies can be more efficient and accurate.”
Thanks for your constructive comments—which helps us a lot to improve the manuscript. We tried our best to address your concerns.
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
Thank you for the authors' responses. I believe this article is suitable for publication.
Reviewer 3 Report
No comment.
