农民水稻施肥行为研究与政策涵义

农业面源是造成太湖富营养化的重要污染源。通过对太湖西岸重点保护区内农民进行随机入户调查，系统地研究了当地农民在水稻种植中的施肥行为特征及其主要影响因素。研究结果表明：(1)在普遍过度施用氮肥的背景下，个体农户在施肥量和施肥种类上存在显著差异；(2)农户施肥行为普遍具有主观性和盲目性的特征。农民的年龄阶段和其对控制化肥用量的态度对氮肥施用量具有显著性影响；(3)在分析化肥施用态度和环境意识对施肥量的影响中，出现了一些与预期相反的趋势。这进一步显示了当地农民在施肥方面缺乏科学引导，导致部分农民尽管存在着良好的控制化肥施用的意愿，却不知如何有效实施。因此，针对当地农民年龄大、文化低等普遍特征，有针对性地设计一些不用复杂模型和流程的简单施肥改善项目，并辅以参与激励措施与风险保障措施，在降低当地氮肥施用量和流失量方面具有巨大潜力，并对太湖流域的水污染控制起到事半功倍的效果

FARMER'S RICE FERTILIZING BEHAVIORS AND POLICY IMPLICATIONS

Agriculture is a major non point pollution source leading to the Lake Tais eutrophication. A random in house survey was conducted to study the fertilizing behaviors of the local farmers in rice planting and their potential influencing factors in 15 villages in the critical protection zone to the west of Tai Lake. Since most of the local farmers are not well educated, the survey was conducted by means of face to face interviews based on a pre constructed questionnaire, which included a series of questions on the following six aspects of the interviewed farmers: (1) basic social economic characteristics, such as age, education, farm size, purpose of rice planting, and sale income of crop; (2) the cost of grain production including seeds, fertilizers, pesticides, machine, labor, and irrigation; (3) the fertilizing behaviors including the type, amount, and timing of fertilizer application, and the use of organic fertilizer; (4) fertilizing attitudes, knowledge and decision making basis, such as attitudes towards fertilizer price, estimates of nitrogen fertilizer recovery efficiency, sources of fertilizing knowledge, the basis for deciding the timing and amount of fertilizer application, and previous experiences with fertilizer related education programs and training; (5) willingness to change fertilizing behaviors, such as their attitudes towards risk, and willingness to follow fertilizing advice of local agricultural extension service; (6) consciousness of water pollution control, such as their assessment of water quality and the impacts of fertilizer usage on ambient water environment, and the acknowledgement of farmers roles in controlling fertilizer usage. Totally, 112 face to face interviews were conducted. After the exclusion of 2 interviews data due to the incompletion, 110 were compiled for further analysis. Study results are as follows. (1) There is much variation among the farmers in both the amount and types of applied mineral fertilizers under the context of universal over fertilization in the study region. (2) Most of the fertilizer usage of the local famers is subjective and arbitrary. Farmers age and their attitudes towards controlling fertilizer use have shown to be significant impacts on their fertilizing behaviors. (3) Some unexpected results have been obtained in the analysis of the impacts of farmers perceptions towards fertilizer use and environmental consciousness on their fertilizer usage. This reinforces that lack of scientific guidance in fertilizer use has caused some farmers uncertain of the right ways in control of fertilizer usage in practice despite their good intentions. Therefore, there are great potentials for the fertilizer education and training programs which do not require complicated models and calculations to reduce fertilizer usage and nutrient loss in the study region, if these programs are tailored towards the local farmers characteristics of old age, lack of education, and the tendency of risk aversion. In addition, a “guaranteed crop production” program as similar as the United States crop reservation program is suggested to encourage the adoption of the best management practices by obliging the participated farmers to follow specific fertilizing rules while providing insurance against the potential risk of reduced grain production. If successfully implemented, these programs will prove to be cost effective in water pollution control in the region of Tai Lake