Impact on pig farmers of government management to reduce the application of drugs- the case of Chinese pig farmers

Abstract Pig farmers' over-application of drugs poses a great threat to the ecological environment. It is beneficial to the sustainable development of the livestock industry to promote the reduction of drug application by farmers. Based on survey data from 1,395 pig farmers in China, this paper first uses a loss control model to calculate the marginal productivity of pig farmers using veterinary drugs. Then, using a binary Logit model to analyze the relationship between government management behaviors and farmers' reduced application of pesticides under different farming regions. The estimation results of the damage control model show that although the proportion of the over-application of veterinary drugs varied among farmers in the four major farming regions, in general, the over-administration of veterinary drugs is common among pig farmers in China. The regression results of the binary logit model show that parthenogenesis was not conducive to farmers' dose reduction, and joining farmers' cooperatives and participating in farming training were beneficial to farmers' dose reduction. Compared to individual farmer characteristics and family business characteristics, government management has a greater impact on farmers to reduce drug application behavior, and constraining and guiding behaviors have different effects on different breeding areas. Therefore, the government should vigorously support the development of farmers' cooperatives and enhance the scale and frequency of farming training as well as formulate differentiated policies according to the different resource endowments of farming regions.