Fujin Yi

China has invested substantial financial subsidies to promote the development of crop insurance; however, the insurance demand among farmers remains notably low, resulting in significant welfare loss. Based on a field survey conducted in 2021 in seven major grain-producing counties in Jiangsu Province, this study analyses the relationship between premium subsidy rates and the welfare effects of subsidies through theoretical model derivation and explores the impact of farmer heterogeneity on the results. This study innovatively introduces a power law distribution model to elucidate the distributional characteristics of farmers’ crop insurance demand, demonstrates the significant limitations of the linear demand model in welfare research, and effectively analyzes the welfare effects of China’s current crop insurance premium subsidy policy. The results indicate that: (1) the actual crop insurance demand of farmers aligns more closely with a power law distribution, and its long-tailed characteristics refute the assumption of linear distribution; (2) there exists an inverted “U”-shaped relationship between the subsidy ratio and the welfare effect, and an excessively high subsidy ratio produces substantial unnecessary losses; (3) variations in welfare effects exist among farmers in different regions, risk attitudes, and cultivation scales, but the range of differences between groups is limited.

The effectiveness of sugar labeling depends not only on direct sugar reduction but also on the extent to which compensatory eating occurs. This study focuses on the use of sucrose grade labels in the Chinese market to investigate not only consumers’ willingness to pay (WTP) for different sucrose labels but also the consistency of their sugar control behavior when confronted with unlabeled processed foods. The findings reveal that consumers are willing to pay approximately 4%, 7%, and 7% more for yogurt labeled as “low sucrose”, “no sucrose”, and “no sucrose with sugar substitutes”, respectively, compared to yogurt labeled as “regular sucrose.” Furthermore, when subsequently presented with unlabeled toast, a significant proportion of consumers who initially chose “no sucrose” yogurt continued to select wholewheat toast, which contains less sugar than white and coconut toast. This indicates their commitment to maintaining their sugar control behavior. The study provides valuable experimental evidence for researchers, food manufacturers, and policymakers regarding the efficacy of sucrose grade labels. In particular, it offers policymakers insights into guiding consumers to promote sustainable healthy diets.

Stable agricultural production has been substantially challenged by increasingly frequent calamitous weather conditions. For winter wheat, continuous precipitation during the harvest season is particularly detrimental. This study utilises a county‐level panel dataset of agricultural production in China for the period of 1998–2016 to evaluate the impact of continuous precipitation on the downside risk of winter wheat yield. Results show that continuous precipitation during the harvest season remarkably increases the downside risk of winter wheat yield. At the same time, the progressive adoption of harvest machinery in recent decades has effectively mitigated the downside risk of winter wheat yield driven by continuous precipitation. The mitigation effects of harvest mechanisation are more pronounced for plain areas with better‐developed transportation infrastructure.

Reducing agricultural carbon emissions is required to reach the goal of carbon neutrality and mitigate the effects of climate change. With the advent of the digital economy, we aimed to determine if digital village construction can achieve carbon reduction in agriculture. As such, in this study, we used balanced panel data for 30 provinces in China from 2011 to 2020 to conduct an empirical analysis based on measuring the digital village construction level in each province. We found the following: Firstly, digital village construction is conducive to reducing the carbon emitted from agriculture, and the results of further tests showed that the carbon reduction effect of digital villages is mainly based on the reduction in carbon emissions from chemical fertilisers and pesticides. Secondly, the digital village construction has a stronger inhibiting effect on agricultural carbon emissions in major grain-producing areas than in non-major grain-producing areas. The level of rural human capital is the limiting condition for digital village construction to enable green agricultural development; in areas with higher levels of human capital, digital village construction has a significant inhibiting effect on agricultural carbon emissions. The above conclusions are valuable for the future promotion of digital village construction and the design of a green development model for agriculture.

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to investigate the impacts of surface ozone pollution on rice profit, output and variable inputs in China.Design/methodology/approach: This study estimates the rice profit function using county-level rice production data and ozone monitoring data in 2014 and 2015 to capture the impact of ozone pollution on rice profit. Then, it uses dual approach to identify the impacts of ozone on the supply of rice and the demand for variable inputs. The ozone concentration data are obtained from 1,412 monitoring stations established by the National Environmental Monitoring Centre of China.Findings: The results show that surface ozone would significantly reduce rice profits; a 1% increase in (the daily average ozone concentration from 9 am to 4 pm) leads to a 0.1% decrease in profits. In addition, ozone has a negative impact on the levels of inputs and the supply of rice, and the elasticities of rice output, fertilizer input and labour input with respect to are −0.87, −0.86 and −0.78%, respectively. These results suggest that ozone pollution affects rice production via two channels: the direct damage on rice growth and the indirect negative impact of reducing variable inputs.Originality/value: This study estimates the impacts of surface ozone pollution on rice profit and output, and quantifies its influence on variable inputs in China, which provides a better understanding of farmers' adaptation behaviour.

Purpose: This paper aims to investigate the changes in living standard among families with different socio-economic status in China with the use of Engel's Coefficient. The authors develop a decomposition methodology to figure out the driving forces behind changes in Engel's Coefficient, and investigate how dramatic economic growth, volatile food price and rapid nutrition transition affect living standard among different families.Design/methodology/approach: The authors propose a statistical method to decompose the changes in living standard measured by Engel's Coefficient into structure effect, price effect, quantity effect and income effect. Using the China Health and Nutrition Survey data between 2000 and 2011, the authors estimate these four effects by employing a decomposition method.Findings: Results show that Engel's Coefficient in China decreased by 8.7 percentage points (hereafter “pp”) during 2000–2011, where structure effect leads to 0.2 pp increase, price effect results in 17.7 pp increase, quantity effect brings about 12.4 pp decline and income effect contributes to 14.2 pp decline. Results indicate that rising food prices are the main obstacle to improve households' living standard. Typically, poor and rural families' living standard is more vulnerable to the rise in food prices, and they benefit less from income growth.Originality/value: This study proposes a decomposition method to investigate the determinants of change in Engel's Coefficient, which provides a deeper understanding of how economic growth, food price change and nutrition transition affect people's living standard in different socio-economic groups in developing countries. This study also provides valuable insights on how to achieve common prosperity from the perspective of consumption upgrading.

Commercial conflict has limited American soy exports to the biggest market, China, providing Russian farmers an opportunity to enter the Chinese market. The Russian Ministry of Agriculture and the Russian Soybean Union have established a program to promote soybean production and processing. Chinese farmers in the Russian Far East (RFE) and high profits from soybean production make new opportunities and challenges for local farmers. We analyze how the soybean development plan has fared so far and the role of Chinese farmers in Russia. The current Sino‐Russian agricultural agreement has little chance of increasing soybean production because of tariffs, unstable regulatory policies, and restrictions on seeds and labor. The scope of the soybean industry can be developed if Russian authorities will take a more liberal approach in Chinese‐Russian cooperation.