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This study examines the economic and environmental impacts of green production practices among farmers. It aims to contribute to sustainable agricultural development, mitigate agricultural non-point source (NPS) pollution, and align environmental protection with economic growth. This paper utilizes survey data from 1345 farm households in the main rice production areas of Jiangxi Province, China, using the example of reduced fertilizer application (RFA) among rice farmers. This study constructs a slack-based measure data envelopment analysis (DEA—SBM) model with undesirable outputs to measure environmental effects and applies an endogenous switching regression model (ESRM) to test the economic and environmental effects of farmers’ adoption of green production technologies. We found the following: (1) The RFA behavior of farmers has a significant positive impact on their net profit per hectare (NPH), helping farmers increase their income, with the increase ranging from 2.05% to 6.54%. (2) Farmers’ RFA behavior has a significant positive impact on agricultural green productivity (AGP), contributing to the improvement of the environment, ranging from 44.09% to 45.35%. (3) A heterogeneity analysis found inconsistencies in the income-enhancing and environmental-enhancing effects at different quantiles of NPH and AGP. Therefore, attention should be placed on improving the agricultural product quality supervision system under the market circulation mechanism, creating land scale conditions conducive to the promotion and application of fertilizer reduction technologies and promoting the implementation of externality internalization compensation systems.

Production process outsourcing not only enhances farmers’ operation capability but also contributes to income growth. Utilizing field survey data from five provinces—Inner Mongolia, Gansu, Ningxia, Henan, and Shaanxi—this study employs an endogenous switching regression model to analyze the impact of production process outsourcing on the enhancement of farmers’ operation capability and the income-enhancing effect. The results reveal the following: (1) Production process outsourcing significantly improves farmers’ operation capability and increases income. (2) A higher degree of adoption of production process outsourcing correlates with greater improvements in farmers’ operation capability. (3) The impact of production process outsourcing on farmers’ operation capability varies with individual endowments; farmers with higher education levels, a larger number of laborers, and smaller planting areas experience more pronounced improvements in management capabilities when participating in outsourcing. (4) Production process outsourcing partially mediates the income-enhancing effect through its influence on farmers’ operation capability. To further promote income growth, it is essential to enhance the agricultural outsourcing market supply system, expand farmers’ access to production service information, and prioritize the development of farmers’ operation capability.

Farmland abandonment has been a major concern for policymakers in most developing nations since it is associated with food security and poverty alleviation. In view of this, assessing its potential determinants is essential and timely. This study examines the relationship between financial literacy and farmland abandonment in Ghana using survey data (N = 572). The study employs endogenous switching regression (ESR) for its estimation. Our findings show that financial literacy is low among rural dwellers. Also, the findings depict that financial literacy is positively related to farmland abandonment reduction. Moreover, different household groups depict a heterogeneous relationship between financial literacy and farmland abandonment. Thus, the association between financial literacy and farmland abandonment reduction is more pronounced for low-income farm households and female farmers. We recommended that financial literacy programs can be organized or shown on national radios and television to provide financial education to the country’s residents. Our findings could offer some implications for stimulating agricultural intensification while ensuring rural advancements.

Under the background of urbanization, rural hollowing out, and aging, it is increasingly urgent to solve the problem of “who will farm the land” to stabilize the foundation of national food security. The socialized agricultural machinery service undoubtedly provides a feasible solution. From the perspective of land productivity, and based on field survey data from 597 farmers in four major wheat-producing provinces in China, this study applied an endogenous switching regression model. By constructing a “counterfactual” analysis framework, this paper’s empirical analysis showed that the socialized agricultural machinery service had a positive impact on the land productivity of wheat production. At the same time, the impact of socialized agricultural machinery services on land productivity was heterogeneous due to the differences in planting scale, terrain, and concurrent business. It can give full play to the positive influence of socialized agricultural machinery services on stable grain yields and increases. It is necessary to guide and support the effective supply of socialized agricultural machinery services in the key links of food production, and to reasonably guide the main providers of socialized agricultural machinery service to provide high-quality services that meet the production needs of small farmers according to local conditions, so as to promote the organic connection between small farmers and the development of modern agriculture.

The modernization of agriculture in China has begun to take shape, but some groups of farmers still have relatively weak access to welfare and live in poverty, which is closely related to national food security and sustainable agricultural development. Based on survey data from northeastern China, this study analyzes the logical framework of “Agricultural Productive Services (APS) Embedded—Farmers’ Family Economic Welfare Enhancement” by the endogenous switching regression model. The main findings are as follows. First, the purchase of APS brings a significant positive impact on farmers’ family economic welfare improvement, mainly through the income effect and the substitution effect. Second, with the income effect, there are significant differences in the strength of the “pulling power” of different forms of APS for farmers’ family economic welfare. Compared with farmers who purchase APS for the entire production chain, farmers who purchase only some of the services are more likely to increase their welfare in the later stages. Third, with the substitution effect, the re-employment behavior of the rural surplus laborers who are “squeezed out” under the embedding of APS is promoted, which makes farmers’ income channels, income types, and income opportunities diversify, and their welfare will be more obviously strengthened after purchasing services. In order to enhance farmers’ welfare more efficiently and meet their needs for a better life, this study suggests a combination of farmer information archiving and labor market information transparency to reduce service risks, expand employment channels, and enhance the effectiveness of the linkage between farmers and service providers.

Amid recent climate difficulties, integrated soil fertility management (ISFM) strategies are vital in restoring soil fertility, enhancing yield, and achieving the farmer community’s well-being. This study examines ISFM’s adoption and impact on wheat yields in Punjab, Pakistan, by employing an endogenous switching regression model (ESRM). The selection equation highlights the multiple factors such as age, gender, education, extension access, credit access, and social influence as essential predictors of ISFM adoption. Treatment effects showed that the average wheat yield is higher for adopters. The findings suggest refining the current institutional system will enhance adoption and food security by improving agricultural production.