Guanghua Lin

Correction on: Fang P, Ma Y and Lin G (2026) Economic viability of commercial organic fertilizer use in sustainable apple production: plot-level evidence from China. Front. Sustain. Food Syst. 10:1886729. doi: 10.3389/fsufs.2026.1886729There was a mistake in Table 1 as published. The unit of "Yield" was incorrectly reported as "ton/ha". The correct unit is "10 t/ha". The reported mean of 1.823 is correct and corresponds to 18.23 t/ha. This correction does not affect the data, regression results, or conclusions of the article. The corrected Table 1 appears below. The final sentence of the final paragraph in Section 4.4, "Cost Effects," was duplicated.A correction has been made to Section 4.4, "Cost Effects," in the final paragraph:The duplicated final sentence, "Consequently, a considerable share of the additional revenue generated by commercial organic fertilizer use is absorbed by higher variable costs," has been deleted.The original version of this article has been updated.

Commercial organic fertilizer is widely promoted as a green input for sustainable agricultural production, but its farm-level economic viability remains insufficiently understood. Using a two-period plot-level panel of Chinese apple growers for 2017–2018, this study examines the early economic response to commercial organic fertilizer use during its policy-promoted diffusion stage. Fixed-effects estimates with farmer and county-by-year fixed effects show that commercial organic fertilizer intensity is positively associated with both output value and gross margin. The estimated coefficients are 0.492 for output value and 0.263 for gross margin, indicating that the gain in gross margin is much smaller than the increase in output value. Channel analysis shows that this economic gain is driven mainly by yield expansion rather than by a stable price premium. Commercial organic fertilizer intensity significantly increases yield, but its effect on average price is not statistically significant. It also does not generate a robust improvement in observable quality shares, and price realization is limited and channel-dependent. Price gains are more evident in direct-to-consumer sales than in sales through farmers transporting apples to dealers. On the cost side, commercial organic fertilizer intensity significantly increases variable costs, with a coefficient of 0.230, implying that about 46.7% of the additional output value is absorbed by higher variable costs. Cost decomposition further suggests that the increase is driven mainly by commercial organic fertilizer-related expenditures and complementary inputs, without a significant offsetting reduction in chemical fertilizer costs. These findings suggest that the economic viability of green input adoption should be evaluated through the full chain linking technical outcomes, market realization, cost constraints, and final economic performance.

The pest control behaviors of agricultural producers are crucial not only for effectively managing pests and diseases but also for ensuring the sustainable development of agricultural production and the environment. Regional specialization in agriculture, as a typical method to optimize planting structure, influences farmers’ control behaviors through dual mechanisms. However, existing research has largely overlooked this issue. This paper systematically examines the influence and mechanisms of agricultural regional specialization on farmers’ pest control strategies and costs. Using village tracking research data and farmer data from the Jiangsu, Sichuan, and Jilin provinces of China over 15 years, the study employs fixed-effects models and the instrumental variable method to provide empirical evidence. The research results indicate that by reducing biological diversity, which exacerbates the occurrence and damage of pests and diseases, and increasing the homogeneity of planting structures, the development of regional specialization in agriculture prompts farmers to shift their control strategy from “ex post treatment” to “ex ante prevention” and has increased the control costs. The policy implication is that farmers should be encouraged to practice moderate crop rotation in rapidly increasing regional specialization. Additionally, strengthening real-time monitoring of pest and disease dynamics is essential to guide farmers in early prevention and timely control.

The adoption of organic fertilizers is essential for advancing China’s green agricultural transformation, ensuring food security, and supporting agricultural adaptations. However, several challenges hinder its widespread use in rural areas. This study examines how part-time farming and agricultural service provision influences organic fertilizer use, employing fixed and random effects models on data from 523 households in Shaanxi Province, one of China’s main apple-producing regions. The results reveal: (1) Part-time farming reduces organic fertilizer use by 7.6%, primarily due to labor shortages; (2) Higher non-farm income exacerbates this decline, particularly for Type II part-time farmers; and (3) Mechanized fertilization services help mitigate this reduction. These findings offer valuable policy insights for promoting organic fertilizer adoption in the context of shifting rural labor dynamics and highlight the complex interactions between farming practices and labor migration in the broader trajectory of organic fertilizer use. Moreover, this study highlights the role of organic fertilizer use in enhancing food security while also helping to reduce the carbon footprint of the crop sector in China.

Overcoming the challenge of more frequent and extreme weather events holds importance in agricultural production. We take spring frost disasters as a representative extreme weather event to identify how perennial economic crop farmers adjust the quantity of organic fertilizer used in response to extreme weather events and their adjustment mechanism. In this study, we establish a conceptual framework for the adaptation mechanism of apple growers under extreme weather events. This article draws and verifies five hypotheses through on-site investigations of apple growers in Shaanxi Province, China. Empirical evidence shows that farmers increase the quantity of commercial organic fertilizer materials in the year and in the following year when spring frost occurs, indicating that their adaptative behavior can be subdivided into repair and prevention. Mechanism analysis shows that liquidity constraints impact farmers' adaptive behavior. Liquidity constraints limit the ability of farmers to increase the quantity of commercial organic fertilizer materials to adapt to a spring frost disaster. Furthermore, for farmers not constrained by liquidity constraints, household resource endowment conditions still affect their adaptive behavior. Significantly, the household labor force size mainly influences farmers to increase commercial organic fertilizer to adapt to a spring frost disaster. Our findings highlight the differences between the adaptive behavior mechanism of perennial crop farmers and food crop farmers. Moreover, we reconfirm the stimulating effect of organic fertilizer on crop production.

The aging of the agricultural labor force is an irreversible trend that has become an important issue in China’s economic transformation. Previous studies on the effects of an aging population in developing countries on agriculture mainly focused on food crops, and the conclusions were mixed. Using data for apple growers in Shaanxi Province, China, we used ordinary least squares (OLS), stochastic frontier production function (SFA), and truncated regression to investigate how rural aging affects apple production under different landform conditions. We provided evidence that (i) aging leads apple growers to use hired labor to replace family labor in the flatlands, but not in mountainous and hilly areas, due to landform constraints on the factor substitution; (ii) aging has no significant impact on mechanical inputs in either the plains or the mountains, indicating that machinery cannot effectively replace the labor force; (iii) limited by a shortage of labor quantity and quality, apple growers respond to aging by reducing agricultural inputs in mountainous and hilly areas; (iv) changes in input structure cause aging to have little influence on yield and technical efficiency in flatlands, while aging significantly reduces yield in mountainous and hilly areas; (v) there is a nonlinear relationship between aging and technical efficiency and yield; and (vi) because the overall mechanization level of China’s apple industry is low, mechanical substitution for labor is not common in apple production.

This study investigates the key factors affecting farmers’ decisions to use chemical fertilizer and/or organic fertilizer in Chinese apple production. This study calculates partial output elasticities and elasticities of the substitution between organic and chemical fertilizer, using a stochastic frontier production function model and data for 2017–2019. Subsequently, it analyzes how different sales channels impact the partial output elasticities of organic fertilizer. It also examines the impact of economic incentives on organic fertilizer use and technical inefficiency levels in apple production. The empirical results indicate that the organic matter in organic fertilizer has a medium level of substitutability with nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium in chemical fertilizer. Further, the results indicate that an increase in the total number of available sales channels incentivizes farms to use more organic fertilizer to optimize apple quantity at the expense of the quality. Contrary, the use of any of the three most commonly used sales channels among apple growers (dealer door-to-door purchases, enterprise sales for juice pressing, and apple brokers) has the opposite effect on the use of organic fertilizer. From these findings, the subsidized provision of organic fertilizer and educating apple farmers about the economic and ecological benefits of sustainable land management measures are suggested. Finally, the study suggests measures to improve farmers’ income, sustainable land management, and lowering the footprint of chemical fertilizers in apple production in China.

This study estimates the effect of interest-free agriculture credit on the market participation and urban-rural linkages of rice growers in Pakistan. A survey was conducted to collect primary data using purposive and simple random sampling techniques from Punjab, Pakistan. This study applied the Instrument Variable (IV) approach and Ordinary Least Square (OLS) to evaluate the impact of interest-free credit on market participation and income. The results show a mixed influence of interest-free credit on rice growers’ market participation and urban-rural linkages. In general, the effect is negative when farmers obtained credit for six months. However, it shows a positive impact when farmers’ received credit for the next consecutive crop. Our findings suggest that the provision of interest-free credit for one year served a better purpose as it significantly attempted to alleviate budget constraints and endorsed farmers to increase land size under rice cultivation and improve productivity, market participation, and urban-rural linkages. The study provides three valid instruments and, therefore, a superior estimate of effect is achieved which can be leveraged to better support coherent agri-food policymaking.

Frequent food quality and safety issues result in various food inspection measures in China, while some are not widely acknowledged by the public and are less efficient. Consumer demand is significant for priority setting in food policy. This study investigates Chinese consumers’ heterogeneous preferences for selected food inspection measures and estimates welfare effects based on willingness-to-pay (WTP) calculation. Rice consumption data from a 2018 nationwide consumer survey designed using the real choice experiment is analyzed by the random parameters logit and the latent class model. The findings reveal that consumers place a high value on government certification, and brand is valuable especially when public management is perceived as weak. However, the insufficient market demand for third-party certification may increase transaction costs due to overlapping functions and consumers’ distrust. Moreover, there should be a need to broaden consumers’ understanding of traceability and grading systems. This study emphasizes the necessity of direct governmental involvement and the existence of unnecessary policy cost.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the impacts of future climate change and the corresponding adaptation activities on grain production and its regional distribution in China. Design/methodology/approach: This paper applied the Chinese Agricultural Policy Analysis model, in combination with the findings from agronomic literature with highly detailed agricultural census data, to conduct equilibrium analysis under alternative impact (seasonal drought and climate warming) scenarios and adaptation scenarios (promoting water-saving irrigation, introducing new varieties, and the integrated) associated with climate change. Findings: Simulation results indicate that climate change-induced seasonal drought and the resulting yield reduction will incur substantial losses to China’s grain production (by ~8 percent at a national scale). The application of water saving techniques can be an effective solution to seasonal drought. Introducing new varieties will increase the combination of promoting water-saving irrigation and new variety adoption will increase combination of promoting water-saving irrigation and new variety adoption constitute an effective approach to offsetting the negative effects of climate change on grain production. Research limitations/implications: Simulation results indicate that climate change-induced seasonal drought and the resulting sown area reduction will incur substantial losses to China’s grain production by approximately 8 percent, despite farmers’ adaptation activities of switching from water use-intensive crops to drought-tolerant crops to mitigate this negative effect. The application of water saving techniques is an effective solution to seasonal drought; it can lead to a nationwide increase in the sown area by 3.48 percent and in the grain production by 4.15 percent. Introducing new varieties will increase grain outputs and change the spatial distribution of crop production across the country. The combination of promoting water-saving irrigation and new variety adoption will increase the national grain production by 19.6 percent, and thus constitute an effective approach to offsetting the negative effects of climate change on grain production. Originality/value: Results from this study provide practical implications formulate strategies in response to climate change. Central government should reinforce the policies such as new varieties promotion and improve the subsidy method to guide the introduction of new varieties.