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Journal of Integrative Agriculture  2018, Vol. 17 Issue (10): 2345-2355    DOI: 10.1016/S2095-3119(18)62058-1
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Determinants of cooperative pig farmers' safe production behaviour in China – Evidences from perspective of cooperatives' services
JI Chen1, CHEN Qin1, Jacques Trienekens2, WANG Hai-tao3 
1 Department of Agricultural Economics and Management/China Academy of Rural Development (CARD), Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310058, P.R.China
2 Business Management & Organisation, Social Sciences Department, Wageningen University Box 8130 6700 EW Wageningen, the Netherlands
3 School of Economics, Hefei University of Technology, Hefei 230601, P.R.China
 
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Abstract  
Farmers’ production behaviour is a key to ensuring the safety and quality of their final products, and cooperatives play an important role in shaping that behaviour.  This paper aims to explore the determinants of pig farmers' safe production behaviour, giving special focus from the perspective of cooperatives’ services.  This study adopted cross sectional survey data from 27 pig cooperatives and their 540 farmers in China to test the influence of cooperatives’ services on farmers’ safe production behaviour.  The hypotheses were tested using a logit regression model.  The findings indicated that although the number of services is not a key determinant of farmers’ safe production behaviour, service quality matters.  When a cooperative is strongly capable of involving more farmers in certain services, and provides certain services in more frequency, member farmers behave more safely.  The results also show that veterinarian and pig-selling services play an important role in ensuring farmers’ safe production behaviour.  For this study, the quality of cooperatives’ services is implied to have a positive impact on farmers’ safe production behaviour.  Leaders/managers of cooperatives must try to improve the quality of their services instead of merely attempting to provide a large number of services.  For government officials and policy makers, designing policies that encourage cooperatives to improve their service quality is important.  This research contributes to the scant literature on how cooperative services could help farmers engage in safer production behaviour, which would improve the safety of pork products in the future.
Keywords:  farmers' safe production behaviour        pig sector        farmer cooperative        China  
Received: 26 March 2018   Accepted:
Fund: We acknowledge the financial supports from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (71403243 and 71403077).
Corresponding Authors:  Correspondence WANG Hai-tao, Tel: +86-551-63831823, E-mail: wht288@126.com   

Cite this article: 

JI Chen, CHEN Qin, Jacques Trienekens, WANG Hai-tao. 2018. Determinants of cooperative pig farmers' safe production behaviour in China – Evidences from perspective of cooperatives' services. Journal of Integrative Agriculture, 17(10): 2345-2355.

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