Organizational Support, Knowledge Distance, and the Agricultural Ecological Efficiency of Smallholders: Comparing Government and Market Drivers

The support of external organizational forces is essential for the promotion of agricultural ecological efficiency to improve agricultural green development and boost China’s prosperity in agriculture. To identify the different impact of different organizational support on improving farmers’ agricultural ecological efficiency and investigate the mechanism by which organizational support affects agricultural ecological efficiency, this study explores the internal logic of farmers’ promotion of agricultural ecological efficiency and empirically examines the impact of organizational support and knowledge distance on agricultural ecological efficiency using 1011 household-level survey data from Henan province in China. The study shows the following: (1) Enhancing organizational support can significantly promote agricultural ecological efficiency, and the effect of organizational support in descending order is agricultural material distributors, peasant cooperatives, village committees, agricultural technology service centers, and agricultural associations. (2) Knowledge distance partially mediates the influence of organizational support on agricultural ecological efficiency. The mediating mechanism of spatial distance is the most significant, followed by content distance and cognitive distance. (3) Market-oriented organizations play a stronger role in incremental support, and government organizations play a stronger role in radical support. This study adds considerable value to the empirical literature and provides precise guidance for improving agricultural ecological efficiency.