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Article

External Factors Facilitating Quality Certification of Agricultural Products in China: Insights from Cooperatives in the Sichuan Province

by
Min Liu
,
Jinxiu Yang
*,
Guoquan Zheng
,
Ping Shang
and
Yipei Li
College of Economics, Sichuan Agricultural University, Chengdu 611130, China
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Agriculture 2023, 13(5), 1056; https://doi.org/10.3390/agriculture13051056
Submission received: 29 March 2023 / Revised: 11 May 2023 / Accepted: 13 May 2023 / Published: 15 May 2023
(This article belongs to the Section Agricultural Economics, Policies and Rural Management)
Versions Notes

Abstract

:
Promoting quality certification of agricultural products is a matter of the sustainable development of agriculture and the transformation of the global agri-food system, and cooperatives are an important carrier to achieve the above policy goals. However, few scholars have included external resources and cooperative quality certification behavior in an analytical framework from the perspective of resource embedding. This study combines resource dependence theory and embeddedness theory, based on survey data from 230 agricultural cooperatives in six counties of Sichuan Province, China. This paper constructs a theoretical analysis framework of government resources, market resources and cooperative quality certification, and uses binary Logit regression model to empirically study the correlation between external resources and cooperative quality certification. The results show that: (1) Cooperatives do not receive a high proportion of external resource support, with 30% and 47% receiving support from the government and market respectively; the proportion of cooperatives carrying out product quality certification was relatively low, about 29.57%. (2) Government resources and market resources have a significant positive effect on improving the quality certification of cooperatives, and the promotion effect of the market is greater than that of the government. (3) Mechanism analysis shows that government resources promote quality certification in cooperatives mainly through regulations on agricultural inputs, while market resources can jointly play a role on regulations on agricultural inputs and market expectations for certified agricultural products.

1. Introduction

The transformation of the agri-food system is required to ensure food and nutrition security, ecological, social and economic sustainability [1]. In recent years, the transformation of the agri-food system is needed due to multiple challenges such as land quality degradation, intensified agricultural non-point source pollution and the continuous impact of COVID-19. Agricultural sustainable development, global food security and the quality structure of agricultural products have become important topics of wide concern. However, it is not easy to smooth the transition of the agri-food system. Because it covers all the links of the whole agricultural industry chain and all the participants and their interrelated effects. At the same time, it also depends on the economic, social and natural environment, which is a highly complex system. The existing research has experienced from how to restore and rebuild the global agri-food system [2] to how to innovate the agricultural subsidy policy and promote the transformation of the agri-food system [3]. At present, the global agri-food system is focusing on how to ensure the population’s dietary nutrition [4], from a survival-oriented food supply to meet nutritional and health needs. As the world’s largest agricultural country, China uses less than 9% of the world’s land to achieve about a quarter of the world’s grain output and feed nearly a fifth of the world’s population. “China has managed its food stocks well, not only ensuring the food supply of the Chinese people, but also contributing to the food security of the people of the world,” said Karibata, special envoy for the UN Food Systems Summit. But at the same time, the Chinese agricultural production practices are relatively outdated, which has brought about a series of resource and environmental problems. Thus, the quality structure of agricultural products is unreasonable, and it is far from meeting the requirements of residents for “eating well, eating healthily and eating nutritiously”. According to China Environmental Statistical Yearbook, the total amount of pesticides and fertilizers applied in China in 2021 reached 1.2355 million tons and 51.075 million tons respectively, and the average amount of chemical fertilizer applied per hectare exceeded 2.25 times the international safe limit of chemical fertilizer application (225 kg per hectare) [5]. In 2021, the State Administration for Market Regulation of China completed 6,954,438 batches of food safety supervision and sampling inspection, and found 187,368 batches of unqualified samples, among which the unqualified items of edible agricultural products were mainly excessive pesticide residues and microbial contamination, accounting for 26.38% and 22.40% respectively [6]. It can be seen that it is imminent to promote the sustainable development of agriculture and the transformation of the agri-food system as a whole.
Encouraging quality certification of agricultural products is an effective means to promote sustainable development [7,8,9], which has been proved through practice in Japan, the European Union and other regions [10,11,12]. Likewise, the vital role of agricultural product quality certification in sustainable agricultural development has also received attention [13]. As an institutional symbol, agricultural product quality certification is out by a third party certification body, which can help consumers identify food quality and reduce screening costs. At the same time, quality certification is also an effective way to guide producers to standardize production, playing an important role in improving food grade and reputation. Some scholars have pointed out that, compared to direct support and subsidy policies, an agri-product certification system can both promote the adoption of sustainable production practices by production and management agents [14,15], and guarantee the supply of ecological high-quality agricultural products [16], which is an effective way to promote sustainable agricultural development from a market-based perspective. According to data from China Agricultural Green Development Report, by the end of 2020, up to 55,000 agricultural products in China have been certified as green, organic and other agricultural products, and the use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides had achieved negative growth for five consecutive years [17].
The implementation of certification systems for agricultural products in China, where production practices are highly decentralized, is not an easy task [18]. Ecological agricultural products often imply higher costs and inputs [14,19]. Therefore, the willingness of ordinary smallholder farmers to adopt pro-environmental production practices is not high in the absence of a quality-price mechanism [20,21]. Li et al. pointed out that cooperatives play a leading role in promoting the establishment of agricultural quality grades and standardization of agricultural products among others [22]. Meanwhile, as an effective path to promote quality certification of agricultural products [23], cooperatives have significant advantages in increasing the benefits of agricultural certification and bridging the costs of certification [24]. However, from the statistics of China Agricultural Cooperatives Development Report 2020, the number of green food certified by Chinese cooperatives accounted for 30.6% and 25.6% of the total number of certified units and products [25], which respectively shows that cooperatives are not effective in carrying out agricultural quality certification. Thus, the research questions of this study were as following: (1) what exactly are the factors influencing cooperatives to carry out agricultural quality certification; (2) how to promote cooperatives to achieve the goal?
From the available literature, scholars mostly focus on the producer’s characteristics and perceptions [26], household characteristics [7,14], social capital [26,27], information disclosure [21], transaction type [24,28] and external regulation [28] to explore the factors that may influence the quality certification of cooperatives. As an institutional design of the “union of the weak”, the internal strength of cooperatives is often limited [29], and the active involvement of external resources is a typical feature of the development of cooperatives in China [27,30]. External resources play an irreplaceable role in facilitating the transformation of production methods, innovating service models and enhancing market competitiveness [27,31]. However, few studies focused on the impact of external resources on cooperatives’ development of quality certification of agricultural products. Even among the limited quantitative studies, most of them only focused on the impact of government resources on cooperatives’ product quality certification. Government resources and market resources are the two most common outreach forces for cooperatives, and when they are embedded in the production and operation of cooperatives, they may change the quality certification behaviors of cooperatives. For example, when the government is embedded in the production chain of cooperatives, it may change the production behavior of cooperatives. Similarly, some market-oriented agents embedded directly in the downstream of the industry chain may reduce transaction costs, raise market expectations, and improve the competitiveness of obtaining certified products. However, few studies discussed both in the same analytical framework from an embedding theory perspective, which can create a problem of research fragmentation.
Based on the above literature review, using data from the team’s 2021 survey in Sichuan Province, using the binary Logit regression model, this study examines the effect of the quality certification of agricultural products as well as its mechanism. From the perspective of agricultural product quality certification in China, this paper provides beneficial enlightenment for agricultural sustainable development and agri-food system transformation. The significant contributions of this work in comparison to earlier research are: First, this paper integrates the triple theoretical perspectives of resource dependence theory, partnership theory and embedding theory. And incorporates sustainable agricultural development and transformation of agri-food system into the same analytical framework from the perspective of agricultural quality certification. The second is an in-depth mechanism analysis. This study adopts the mediation effect model, from the perspective of production behavior constraint and market behavior promotion, and profoundly analyzes the mechanism of agricultural quality certification of cooperatives. The third is we analyze the heterogeneity effect of external resources on cooperatives with different leadership models. The results of this study can also lead us to rethink the effectiveness of existing policies and guide how to promote quality certification of cooperatives.

2. Theoretical Analysis and Research Hypotheses

The resource dependency perspective is widely used to understand the relationship between cooperative development and external resources [32]. As an organization of “union of the weak”, the dependence on external resources and the diversity of needs of cooperatives are greater than other organization types [33], and are essentially environmentally adaptive organizations. The operation of cooperatives is highly dependent on external resources, and is strongly constrained and influenced by the internal membership structure [34]. Among them, external resources not only help to reduce the cost of quality certification of cooperatives, for example, the Chinese government often provides subsidies or rewards to production operators that pass quality certification. At the same time, external resources can also change the behavior of production and management of cooperatives, possibly promoting quality certification for cooperatives by increasing the level of premiums and market competitiveness of certified agricultural products. For example, agricultural products entering fresh produce supermarkets such as Freshippo and Walmart are often required to obtain quality certification, which is reflected in more substantial sales prices.
Partnership theory emphasizes the extension of organizational boundaries through extensive cooperation [35]. On the one hand, cooperatives bear the organizational mission of rural social and economic development, and they need to seek government support to achieve their internal organizational goals [36]. Government support for the development of cooperatives is an internationally accepted practice, in Chinese society where public power penetrates downward, the role of government in agricultural production cannot be ignored. Government support for cooperatives is mainly manifested in providing financial subsidies and tax incentives, and promoting the development of cooperatives by providing training, technology and information services. It is worth mentioning that cooperatives often serve as an important carrier for the implementation of Chinese government policies. Therefore, in the context of China’s advocacy of sustainable agricultural production and the transformation of the agri-food system, government resources contribute to the construction of a favorable institutional environment [37]. On the other hand, market resources, as another structural force, have an important role to play in improving the external environment of cooperatives. Cooperatives are often small in scale, have low levels of service, and are not sufficiently resilient to market risks [29]. The support of market resources to cooperatives is usually reflected in the signing of purchase and sale agreements, the establishment of cooperative relations, and the definition of price, purchase quantity and quality standards. Therefore, market resources are conducive to giving play to the attributes of cooperative economic organizations. At the same time, it plays an important role in unimpeded sales of ecological agricultural products [38]. Thus, government resources and market resources are indispensable driving forces for cooperatives to carry out quality certification of agricultural products. Based on the above analysis, this paper proposes the following research hypothesis.
H1. 
There is a positive and significant correlation between government resources and quality certification of agricultural products.
H2. 
There is a positive and significant correlation between market resources and quality certification of agricultural products.
The theory of embeddedness is an excellent theoretical perspective to help us further understand the mechanisms after establishing a partnership with external resources [39]. The common forms of quality certification of agricultural products in China include green food certification and organic food certification. Among them, green food certification is a concept specific to China, requiring a pollution-free environment and production process, and setting minimum standards for residues of pesticides, production hormones, and other chemical compounds [40]. Organic food certification is an international concept that requires the production process to be completely free from the use of any chemical compounds and a three-year conversion period for agricultural products [36]. As can be seen, certification of the quality of agricultural products does not exist in isolation. Firstly, it relies on standardized production methods, and is subject to strict restrictions on the use of chemical inputs such as pesticides and fertilizers, making it difficult for producers to achieve self-regulation on their own. On the one hand, based on the policy needs of sustainable agricultural production and agri-food system transformation, the government restricts agricultural production behavior by regulating the use of inputs. For example, local governments often guide cooperatives to keep records of fertilizer application and medication, and conduct regular supervision and inspection; on the other hand, fresh supermarkets, enterprises and other market entities have strict access requirements for the quality of agricultural products, and substandard products are often restricted from purchase. Therefore, market resources may also promote cooperatives to carry out quality certification by transforming sustainable production behavior. Based on the above analysis, this paper proposes the following research hypothesis.
H3a. 
Government resources act on cooperative quality certification through regulations on agricultural inputs.
H3b. 
Market resources act on cooperative quality certification through regulations on agricultural inputs.
Secondly, the process of quality certification of agricultural products is a continuous process of cost inputs [13]. According to prospect theory, there is a need to increase the expectation of the benefits of certification, thus promoting quality certification of agricultural products behavior. Zhou et al. pointed out that market incentives and the drive for intrinsic responsibility of the subject are more critical factors for the quality certification of agricultural products [41]. Studies have shown that external resources embedded in the marketing process play a vital role in helping build sales channels [34] and enhance market competitiveness [42]. This can push cooperatives to carry out quality certification by unblocking the marketing of ecological agricultural products and stabilizing trading expectations. On the one hand, cooperatives closely connected with the government can often obtain agricultural product consumption assistance policies with the help of administrative power. This helps cooperatives to build market confidence and promotes cooperatives to carry out quality certification; on the other hand, cooperation between market entities and cooperatives is usually reflected in the signing of sales agreements. This also unimpeded access to certification of agricultural products sales, for cooperatives to carry out quality certification has a promoting effect. Based on the above analysis, this paper proposes the following research hypothesis.
H4a. 
Government resources promote cooperatives to carry out quality certification by raising certified products’ market expectations.
H4b. 
Enterprise resources promote cooperatives to carry out quality certification by raising certified products’ market expectations.
In general, the leadership models of cooperatives in China usually include smallholder self-organized, elite-led, and enterprise-led. Different leadership models may have heterogeneous behavior toward cooperative quality certification. Among them, elite-led and enterprise-led cooperatives are two types of cooperatives that deserve attention. Elite-led cooperatives are often initiated by local elites, and enterprise-led cooperatives are initiated by enterprises. They have stronger operational strength and external resource mobilization capacity. Government resources may still facilitate quality certification for these two types of cooperatives by transforming their production methods. However, based on the fact that corporate-initiated cooperatives often have already established a smooth marketing chain. Market resources may not have a significant role in promoting the certification behavior of cooperatives. Based on the above analysis, this paper proposes the following research hypothesis.
H5a. 
Government resources can promote the quality certification of both elite-led and enterprise-led cooperatives.
H5b. 
Market resources can promote the quality certification of elite-led cooperatives, but cannot promote of enterprise-led cooperatives.

3. Data and Methods

3.1. Data Sources

The research data was collected through a survey of 230 cooperatives in six counties of Sichuan Province, China, which was conducted during July-December 2021. The survey included questions about basic information, green production about the cooperatives, and resource support received by the cooperatives, and each questionnaire lasted 1–1.5 h. To ensure the typicality and representativeness of the sample selected for the survey, a combination of general random sampling and stratified random sampling with equal probability was used to determine the research sample. Specifically, 4–8 townships were randomly selected in each sampled county, depending on the level of economic development; then, 5–10 cooperatives with quality certification of agricultural products were randomly selected in each sample township. A total of 230 valid interview responses were obtained from the cooperatives.

3.2. Variables

(1) The dependent variable in this study is the quality certification behavior of cooperatives. The questionnaire was based on the question “Is the cooperative certified as green or organic?” See Table 1 for details.
(2) The core variables in this study are government resources and market resources of cooperatives. Government resources are measured by “whether the cooperative has a cooperative relationship with the government” and market resources are measured by “whether the cooperative has a cooperative relationship with other enterprises”. If the answer is “Yes”, the assignment is 1, otherwise, the assignment is 0. 30% of cooperatives have established cooperative relations with the government, and 47% have established cooperative relations with enterprises.
(3) The mediating variables in this study are regulations on agricultural inputs and certified products market expectations. Today, Chinese agriculture is in a critical period of transition from traditional to sustainable agriculture. When government resources and market resources step in, it is their mission to guide the transition from traditional agriculture to modern agriculture. Often, external resources will guide agricultural cooperatives to keep inputs records of agricultural production and inspect and supervise agricultural fertilizers and pesticides from time to time. Therefore, this paper chooses “whether agricultural inputs are recorded” as a measure. In practice, the questionnaire directly asked the cooperative “whether it has the following agricultural inputs records: seedling inputs, pesticide inputs, fertilizer inputs and production hormone inputs”, with one point awarded for each. With the improvement of living standards, the growing consumer demand for safe and high-quality agricultural products is a key force driving the ecological transformation of agriculture and the quality certification of agricultural products. External resources usually contain market forces that facilitate the cooperative to establish transaction relationships, thus stabilizing market expectations for the sale of agricultural products and forcing the production and certification of green agricultural products. In the survey, the cooperatives were asked if they had established stable transaction relationships with other enterprises, and the transaction relationships were assigned a value: no stable transaction relationship = 0, verbal agreement = 1, short-term purchase and sales contract = 2, long-term purchase and sales contract = 3.
(4) In this study, cooperatives were divided into different groups according to whether they were elite-led or enterprise-led. In particular, the following types of cooperative initiation are directly asked in the questionnaire: local elite initiation, enterprise initiation and smallholder self-organization. As shown in Table 2, among the 230 cooperatives, 103 cooperatives were elite-led, 78 cooperatives were enterprise-led, and 49 cooperatives were established by smallholder farmers on their initiative.
(5) Referring to the research of Li et al. and Xie et al. The distance between the cooperative and the county town [43], the number of cooperative members, the registered capital of the cooperative, the educational level of the chairman and the years of establishment of the cooperative are introduced as control variables [13,22]. As shown in Table 2, among the 230 cooperatives, the average distance of cooperatives from the county town was 71.25 km; the number of cooperative members was about 118; the logarithm of cooperative registered capital was 4.95; the educational level of the director was middle school or above; the average age of cooperatives is 8.16 years.

3.3. Empirical Method

The dependent variables of interest in this study are cooperativesi whether they have product quality certification, no product quality certification   Y i = 0 , green certification Y i = 1 , which are dichotomous variables. Therefore, the study developed the following binary logit model.
Y i * = β 0 + β 1 X 1 i + β 2 X 2 i + β 3 C o n t r o l + ε i
X 1 i   denotes the degree of influence of government resources on the product quality certification of cooperativei, X 2 i   denotes the degree of influence of market resources on the product quality certification of cooperativei, Controli denotes the control variable of cooperativei, ε is a random disturbance term obeying a normal distribution, β0 is a constant term, β1, β2 and β3 are regression coefficients.

4. Empirical Analysis

4.1. Influence of Government Resources and Market Resources on Product Quality Certification of Cooperatives

Table 3 reports the results of the benchmark regression analysis. Model 1 is a correlation between government resources and cooperative quality certification behavior. Model 2 presents a correlation between market resources and cooperative quality certification behavior. Model 3 estimates a regression with both government resources and market resources included in the model and model 4 is a further addition of control variables to model 3. The estimated parameters of the logistic regression results are not easy to interpret, and to facilitate analysis, the results reported in the tables are the average marginal effect results for the full sample. After the test, there is no serious multicollinearity among the independent variables of the model (the correlation coefficients between the model variables are all less than 0.7), the subsequent regression analysis can be carried out. The estimated coefficients of the government resources and market resources variables are positively significant in several models. This indicates that government resources and market resources promote the certification of cooperative product quality and the results are somewhat robust.
As shown in Model 4, government resources significantly and positively influence the quality certification behavior of cooperatives. Specifically, with other conditions unchanged, for each unit increase in government resources, the probability of a cooperative undertaking quality certification increases by 13.3%. At the same time, market resources also significantly and positively influenced the quality certification behavior of cooperatives. Specifically, all else equal, a one-unit increase in market resources was associated with a 21.3% increase in the probability that a cooperative would certify its product quality. Comparing the absolute magnitude of the coefficients of the two effects shows that the effect of market resources is greater than that of government resources.

4.2. Intermediary Effect Analysis

As mentioned earlier, government resources and market resources can promote quality certification behavior in cooperatives. Based on the above analysis, referring to the research of Wen and Ye [44], a mediation effect model was used to further explore the specific mechanism of this effect, i.e., to test research hypotheses H3 and H4.
Table 4 reports the results of the intermediary effect of inputs records. Model 1 and Model 2 show the results of stepwise regression tests of inputs records in government resources and market resources and cooperative quality certification behavior. The results show that there is an intermediary effect of inputs records in both government resources, market resources and cooperative quality certification behavior. This partly verifies the research hypothesis H3.
Table 5 reports the results of the intermediary effect of market expectations. Model 1 and Model 2 show the results of stepwise regression tests of market expectations in government resources and market resources and cooperative quality certification behavior. The results indicate that there is an intermediary effect of the transaction relationship in the behavior of market resources and cooperative quality certification, while there is no intermediary effect in the behavior of government resources and cooperative quality certification. This partly verifies the research hypothesis H4b and rejects the hypothesis in H4a that government resources contribute to cooperatives’ quality certification by raising certified products’ market expectations. The results suggest that market resources tend to play a more critical role in building marketing channels and stabilizing trading expectations in cooperatives, while government resources play a more limited role in this.

4.3. Heterogeneity Analysis

Table 6 reports the heterogeneity analysis results of different initiators, and the results show that the effects of elite leadership and enterprise leadership on the quality certification behavior of cooperatives are unbalanced. Model 1 shows that both government and market resources significantly influence the quality certification behavior of elite-led cooperatives, while for non-elite-led cooperatives, only market resources have a significant positive effect on cooperative quality certification, while government resources have no significant effect on cooperative quality certification behavior. H5a is partially tested, and government resources can promote the quality certification of elite-led cooperatives, but the effect on enterprise-led cooperatives is not obvious. The results of Model 2 show that for enterprise-led cooperatives, neither government resources nor market resources have a significant effect on cooperative quality certification, while market resources and government resources have a significant positive effect on non-corporate-led cooperatives’ quality certification. This partly verifies the research hypothesis H5b.

4.4. Robustness Test

To test the robustness of the estimation results, this study used a change in estimation method (changing the logistic model into a probit model and a multiple linear regression model) to conduct robustness tests, and the results are shown in Table 7. It can be seen that the estimation results of government resources and market resources on the quality assessment behavior of cooperatives are similar to those estimated by the logistic regression model, government resources and market resources will significantly contribute to the quality assessment behavior of cooperatives. This result argues for the robustness of the estimation results of this study.

5. Discussion

Using survey data from 230 cooperatives in Sichuan Province, this study empirically analyses the correlation between government resources, market resources, and quality certification of cooperatives, and analyses the theoretical mechanisms by which government resources and market resources contribute to the quality certification of agricultural products. Compared with the existing studies, this paper explores the mechanism of the quality certification behavior of cooperatives after the embedding of external resources. Difference from the existing research that focuses on the role, path and influencing factors of quality certification in cooperatives, this paper finds that the embeddedness of external resources may promote cooperatives to adopt sustainable production methods and improve market expectations of certified products, thus promoting cooperatives to carry out quality certification. This means that external resources may change producer behavior, and the reduction of transaction costs may play a key role. In addition, we also found that the change of producers’ behavior patterns may not only result from the simple guidance from the production link, but also the push-back mechanism of the marketing link may play a greater role.
There are some similarities and differences between the findings of this study and existing studies, specifically: government resources and market resources are important influencing factors for cooperatives’ adoption of quality certification. In line with Jayasinghe and Ollinger, the research hypotheses H1 and H2 are confirmed, the choice of production methods and the implementation of quality certification practices are the results of joint government-market interaction and food safety governance requires a synergistic effort between the government and the market [45]. Similar to Caswell’s findings on the impact of regulation and market-driven private behavior on food safety performance [46], this paper finds that it is more effective to establish sales channels for certified products from the market side. Indeed, the act of agricultural quality certification is a more market-driven rational behavior. Numerous studies have confirmed the limited effectiveness of government-driven guidance and mobilization alone, with market pull being more effective [47,48,49].
Meanwhile, consistent with hypothesis H3, we find that government resources and market resources can promote agricultural product certification by positively guiding cooperatives to adopt sustainable production methods, such as controlling the use of agricultural inputs. Consistent with Caswell and Deng et al. Market resources help to establish stable marketing channels, and they have found that market resources can promote cooperatives to carry out quality certification by improving certified products’ market expectations [46,50]. Although Jayasinghe et al., Ollinger et al., and others have highlighted that government helps to achieve food safety governance by reducing transaction costs [45,51], the effect of implementing this policy intention does not seem to be satisfactory in the case of quality certification of agricultural products of cooperatives in China. In line with Xu, this study similarly found that the role of government resources in building sales channels was not significant [52]. The possible reason is that the Chinese government’s support for cooperatives has fallen into the trap of formalism. For example, the government often helps cooperatives build sales channels such as agricultural consumption assistance programs. But it is limited by a lack of digestive agricultural products market, leading to support effect is not ideal.
Furthermore, our study looked at the response of cooperatives with different sponsors to external resources. Consistent with the prevailing view that elite-led cooperatives are more capable of mobilizing both government and market resources, external resources can significantly contribute to the development of quality certification of agricultural products in these cooperatives. However, different from Li et al. the effect of government and market resources on the quality certification of enterprise-led cooperatives was not significant [53]. This may be because business-led cooperatives have developed relatively fixed production methods and business models, making it difficult for external resources to change their development mindset. Although we found that business-led cooperatives performed better than other cooperatives in terms of participation in the quality certification of agricultural products, the effect of external resources in other aspects of cooperative governance deserves further attention.
The findings of this study are also worthy of our consideration, in the process of cooperative development, the government often realizes strong guidance and supervision. Undoubtedly, the government does play a key role in transforming agricultural production methods and improving the quality of agricultural products. However, quality certification of agricultural products is equally important as an institutional symbol for reducing transaction costs and regulation by market mechanisms. It is difficult to achieve the desired effect by the government alone, and in practice, this can easily lead to a series of failures, and the credibility of the institutional symbols will gradually fade away, a phenomenon that is widespread in different degrees around the world. Therefore, in the context of strong government involvement in the governance of cooperatives, it is worth exploring how to make better use of the market’s push-back mechanism.
Moreover, the findings of this study have important policy implications. From the results of this study, it is clear that both government resources and market resources can contribute to quality certification in varying degrees, and that the involvement of external resources is an important driving force for cooperatives to participate in food safety governance and ecological protection. At the same time, the effectiveness of quality certification of agricultural products is subject to strict control of agricultural inputs and stable demand for certified agricultural products. Based on this, the government not only needs to regulate production, but also needs to guide the establishment of sound market mechanism. Meanwhile, the building of an integrated social service system is equally important. The government should therefore intervene appropriately in the food safety governance of agricultural cooperatives, and in other governance efforts with externalities that also require government guidance, however, the manner of government intervention and the extent of its involvement are issues worth noting. At the same time, it is important to create a social environment in which all people can participate in ecological protection, to create a gap in society’s consumption of environmentally friendly products, and to leverage quality certification of agricultural products from the market side. In addition, the construction of an agricultural social service system should be increased to provide technical guidance and production and marketing services for sustainable agricultural production.
Besides, there are certain shortcomings in this study. For example, this paper only explores the influence of government resources and market resources on the quality certification of cooperatives, but pays insufficient attention to other external resources such as industrial associations and other social organizations. Also, the research area of this paper is six counties of Sichuan Province, and the applicability of the findings to other regions needs to be further explored. In addition, with the development of global ecological and environmental protection issues, the connotation of sustainable development in agriculture will be further expanded, and zero-carbon food and carbon-neutral food are emerging, the scope of agricultural product quality certification is also expanding. Therefore, for one thing, future research needs to broaden the types of external resources to include more comprehensive types of certification of agricultural products. For another, multiple theoretical perspectives should be combined to carry out more in-depth and systematic research from the aspects of the transformation of production behavior mode, reducing transaction costs, and enhancing the competitiveness of agricultural products.

6. Conclusions

Based on research data from 230 cooperatives in six districts and counties in Sichuan Province in 2021, the study used a logistic model and a mediation effect model to analyze in depth the influence and mechanism of action of government resources and market resources on cooperatives’ product quality certification behavior, and obtained the following core conclusions.
(1)
The extent to which cooperatives are supported by government and market resources is low, with a 30% probability of being supported by government resources and a 47% probability of being supported by market resources; at the same time, the extent to which cooperatives have product quality certification is low, with 29.57% of cooperatives having product quality certification.
(2)
Both government and market resources significantly contribute to cooperative product quality certification behavior. Specifically, all else being equal, the probability of a cooperative certifying its product quality increased by 13.3% for each additional unit of government resources, and by 21.3% for each additional unit of market resources.
(3)
An analysis of the intermediary effect found that government resources can act to certify the quality of cooperative products by regulating agricultural inputs, while market resources are conducive to promoting agricultural cooperatives to carry out quality certification of agricultural products by regulating agricultural inputs and improving certified market expectations.

Author Contributions

M.L. and J.Y. designed the central idea, P.S. prepared the material, M.L., G.Z., P.S. and Y.L. jointly completed the data collection and analysis, the first draft was written by M.L. and G.Z., J.Y. reviewed the draft. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

Funding

This research was funded by National Philosophy and Social Sciences Planning Office (Grant No. 22XJY015) and Sichuan Philosophy and Social Sciences Planning Office (Grant No. xy2022011) and Chengdu Philosophy and Social Sciences Planning Office (Grant No. 2022CS045).

Institutional Review Board Statement

Not applicable.

Informed Consent Statement

Not applicable.

Data Availability Statement

The authors can provide raw data and code if needed.

Acknowledgments

We gratefully acknowledge financial support from National Philosophy and Social Sciences Planning Office (Grant No. 22XJY015), Sichuan Philosophy and Social Sciences Planning Office (Grant No. xy2022011), and Chengdu Philosophy and Social Sciences Planning Office (Grant No.2022CS045). The authors also extend great gratitude to the anonymous reviewers and editors for their helpful reviews and critical comments.

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declared that they have no conflict of interest to this work. We declare that we do not have any commercial or associative interest that represents a conflict of interest in connection with the work submitted.

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Table
Table 1. Cooperative quality certification.
Table 1. Cooperative quality certification.
Quality Certification
No = 0Yes = 1
FrequencyProportionFrequencyProportion
16270.43%6829.57%
Table
Table 2. Descriptive statistical analysis.
Table 2. Descriptive statistical analysis.
VariableDefinitionMeanSD a
Quality certificationWhether the cooperative has obtained product quality certification (No = 0; Yes = 1)0.4100.700
DistanceDistance of the cooperative from the county town (km)71.25225.2
MembersNumber of cooperative members (pcs)117.7232.9
CapitalThe registered capital of the cooperative (RMB 10,000) b326.755510.672
EducationEducation level of cooperative directors c2.1001.010
DurationYear of the establishment of the cooperative (years)8.1603.390
Government resourceWhether the cooperative has a partnership with the government (No = 0; Yes = 1)0.3000.460
Market resourceWhether the cooperative has established partnerships with other enterprises (No = 0; Yes = 1)0.4700.500
Elite-ledWhether the cooperative is led by the local elite (No = 0; Yes = 1)0.3260.469
Enterprise-ledWhether the cooperative is led by the enterprise (No = 0; Yes = 1)0.0780.269
Note: a SD = Standard deviation; b 1 $ = 6.47 Yuan in 2017; c 1 = primary schools and below, 2 = middle school, 3 = high school, 4 = undergraduate/junior college, 5 = graduate and above.
Table
Table 3. Results of the baseline regression analysis.
Table 3. Results of the baseline regression analysis.
(1)(2)(3)(4)
Model1Model2Model3Model4
Government resource0.205 *** 0.156 ***0.133 **
(0.055) (0.054)(0.057)
Market resource 0.291 ***0.265 ***0.213 ***
(0.048)(0.048)(0.053)
Distance 0.008
(0.021)
Members −0.000
(0.000)
Capital 0.001
(0.020)
Education 0.014
(0.028)
Duration 0.022 **
(0.008)
Constant−1.217 ***−1.744 ***−1.989 ***−3.501 ***
(0.188)(0.256)(0.285)(0.875)
chi211.42924.28228.75235.837
N230.000230.000230.000230.000
Note: Standard errors in parentheses ** p < 0.05, *** p < 0.01.
Table
Table 4. Intermediary effects of inputs records.
Table 4. Intermediary effects of inputs records.
VariablesMechanism 1: External Resources → Inputs Records → Cooperative Quality Certification
Quality CertificationInputs RecordsQuality Certification
Government Resources0.780 **0.916 **0.583
(0.349)(0.437)(0.358)
Market Resources1.248 ***0.777 *1.060 ***
0.780 **0.916 **0.583
Inputs Records 0.493 ***
(0.169)
Control−3.501 ***−1.547 *−3.592 ***
Constant(0.875)(0.914)(0.870)
35.83734.77440.276
N230.000230.000230.000
Note: Standard errors in parentheses * p < 0.1, ** p < 0.05, *** p < 0.01.
Table
Table 5. Mediation effects of sales channels.
Table 5. Mediation effects of sales channels.
VariablesMechanism 2: External Resources → Market Expectations → Cooperative Quality Certification
Quality CertificationMarket ExpectationsQuality Certification
Government Resources0.780 **0.1720.708 **
(0.349)(0.159)(0.359)
Market Resources1.248 ***0.485 ***1.025 ***
(0.346)(0.144)(0.359)
Market Expectations 0.547 ***
(0.160)
Control−3.501 ***0.446−4.040 ***
Constant(0.875)(0.332)(0.924)
35.837 44.432
N230.000230.000230.000
Note: Standard errors in parentheses ** p < 0.05, *** p < 0.01.
Table
Table 6. Analysis of heterogeneity.
Table 6. Analysis of heterogeneity.
VariablesElite-Led (Model 1)Enterprise-Led (Model 2)
YesNoYesNo
Government Resources1.240 **0.4650.9930.913 **
(0.556)(0.504)(0.748)(0.464)
Market Resources1.958 ***1.167 **0.6001.813 ***
1.240 **0.4650.9930.913 **
ControlYesYes Yes
Constant−3.527 **−4.956 ***−6.385 ***−2.847 **
(1.745)(1.374)(1.774)(1.109)
chi219.29824.10817.24824.722
N103.000127.00078.000152.000
Note: Standard errors in parentheses ** p < 0.05, *** p < 0.01.
Table
Table 7. Robustness test regression results.
Table 7. Robustness test regression results.
Model 1 (Multiple Regression)Model 2 (Probit)
Government Resources0.252 **0.464 **
(0.110)(0.208)
Market Resources0.358 ***0.737 ***
(0.098)(0.200)
ControlYesYes
Constant−0.149−2.085 ***
(0.224)(0.489)
N230230
Note: ***, ** indicate the significance levels of 1% and 5% respectively; robustness standard errors are reported in parentheses.
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Liu, M.; Yang, J.; Zheng, G.; Shang, P.; Li, Y. External Factors Facilitating Quality Certification of Agricultural Products in China: Insights from Cooperatives in the Sichuan Province. Agriculture 2023, 13, 1056. https://doi.org/10.3390/agriculture13051056

AMA Style

Liu M, Yang J, Zheng G, Shang P, Li Y. External Factors Facilitating Quality Certification of Agricultural Products in China: Insights from Cooperatives in the Sichuan Province. Agriculture. 2023; 13(5):1056. https://doi.org/10.3390/agriculture13051056

Chicago/Turabian Style

Liu, Min, Jinxiu Yang, Guoquan Zheng, Ping Shang, and Yipei Li. 2023. "External Factors Facilitating Quality Certification of Agricultural Products in China: Insights from Cooperatives in the Sichuan Province" Agriculture 13, no. 5: 1056. https://doi.org/10.3390/agriculture13051056

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