The impact of psychological factors on farmers' intentions to reuse agricultural biomass waste for carbon emission abatement

Existing studies on farmers' willingness to reuse agricultural biomass waste usually focus on individual and social economic characteristics without consideration of the underlying psychological factors. This paper uses the theory of planned behavior, a typical social psychology model, to identify the psychological constructs that affect farmers' intentions to reuse agricultural biomass waste for carbon emission abatement. According to this theory, an individual's behavior is driven by the individual's intention, which in turn is determined by the individual's attitude, subjective norm and perceived behavioral control. Structural equation modeling was used to analyze the logical relationships among these constructs. The results showed that farmers' intentions were significantly determined by their attitudes, followed by their perceived behavioral controls. Meanwhile, multiple-group analyses were conducted to determine the differences of the driving factors between different types of farmers on their intentions to reuse agricultural biomass waste. Subjective norms were proven to be a factor affecting the reuse intentions of the farmers who are female, highly educated, having high income or less farming experience. These findings can be used by policy-makers to formulate incentive policies to motivate farmers' agricultural biomass waste reuse intentions or even behaviors. Effective approaches should be developed to cultivate farmers' positive attitudes, ecological benefits awareness and social norms consciousness, in order to arouse their enthusiasm for participating in reuse practice to mitigate climate change. The conclusions of this study also provide an important scientific basis for developing countries and regions to encourage farmers to reuse agricultural biomass waste for carbon emission abatement.