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Nowadays, there is a growing interest in pro-environmental foods produced by pro-environmental practices. However, consumers’ payment motivations towards such foods are currently poorly understood. This manuscript provided a critical investigation of Chinese consumers’ intention to pay a premium (ITPP) for rice grown with green manure as crop fertilizer (GMR). One focus was the establishment of an explanatory structural research framework that includes effects of environmental behavior spillover (EBS) and public information induction (PII), another focus was to analyze the impacts of the selected structural elements on ITPP by introducing education as a moderator. Results suggest that consumers’ ITPP can be largely influenced by PII, therefore, for GMR marketers and policy makers, measures should be developed to widen consumers’ access to public information related to GMR and to improve their capacity of screening effective information. EBS, when ITPP remains low, emerged as a pivotal predictor of consumers’ ITPP. This observation provides us with the enlightenment that breeding consumers’ daily environmental behaviors is highly valued to inspire their payment intention in the early stages of GMR market development. Another finding is that, with the introduction of the educational variable, the influence coefficients of EBS and PII on ITPP increased from 0.42 and 0.53 to 0.61 and 0.66, respectively, which means that it is possible to boost consumers’ payment intention by improving their educational attainment. This study contributes to the existing literature by providing empirical evidence for the GMR industrial upgrading strategy and have significant implications for the environmental governance of the agricultural sector.

CONTEXT Farmers' decision-making related to the use of winter fallow fields is an issue of great concern to policymakers in China. An improved agricultural system, the rice-green manure rotation system (RGRS), has attracted more and more attention because of its efficient utilization of these fields and its outstanding comprehensive benefits. Despite the government's growing promotion, unfortunately low adoption has been observed among farmers. OBJECTIVE In this case, exploring the factors that affect farmers' adoption of RGRS has become the key to crack the above dilemma. METHODS This study therefore aims to reveal the factors determining farmers' intention and behavior to adopt RGRS by extending the theory of planned behavior (TPB) based on 1217 samples collected in the southern paddy field region (SPR) of China. RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS Results firstly validated the applicability of the extended TPB framework in analyzing farmers' intention and behavior to adopt RGRS. Subsequently, we found that farmers' intention to adopt RGRS can be greatly influenced by the perceived behavioral control, especially the control beliefs with regard to capital restriction and the expected environmental benefits of RGRS. Therefore, supportive policies should be formulated to improve farmers' behavioral capacity and, specialized training should be organized to improve their expected environmental benefits. Subjective norm, especially those derived from interpersonal relationships, emerged as another pivotal independent predictor of farmers' intention to adopt RGRS. This observation provides policy makers with enlightenment that strengthening the interpersonal social network is highly valued to improve farmers' adoption intention. Another finding is that there was a highly positive consistency between farmers' intention and behavior to adopt RGRS, which provides a possibility to predict, strengthen and test farmers' behavior based on their intention. More importantly, the comparison between the estimation results of the extended model and the original model shows that eco-compensation significantly increased the probability of intention being converted into behavior by moderating the influence intensity of perceived behavioral control on intention. SIGNIFICANCE These results can help policy makers better understand which influence farmers' adoption of RGRS and what targeted measures can be taken to popularize the improved agricultural system.

Planting green manure in fallow croplands in winter can bring various economic and environmental benefits, including increased food production, carbon capture and sequestration, soil retention, sandstorm prevention, water retention, and provision of habitat for biodiversity. However, the increased production cost of planting green manure reduces farmers&rsquo, willingness to adopt this approach, which is unfavorable for its sustainability. This research aims to investigate the influence of instrumental variables on farmers&rsquo, perceptions of sustainable agriculture practices, especially the use of rotation fallow, and tries to understand the relationship between farmers&rsquo, perceptions of using rotation fallow and planting green manure under incentive measures adopted by local authorities in Guangxi Province, China. Using simultaneous equation models, the results show that subsidies and planting training were the most important drivers for restoring green manure planting in the target region. These incentive measures could be further enhanced as a priority to restore green manure planting. The study also finds that socioeconomic factors such as farmer&rsquo, s income, area of farmland, and labor for agricultural production have a certain influence on planting green manure planting and on farmers&rsquo, perceptions of using rotation fallow as a form of sustainable agriculture practice.