Purchase behavior of agricultural green production machinery based on different agricultural operation entities

Green development has been a pressing requirement to the practical need of agricultural development in the national strategy. Green production machinery has also been one of the most important parts of agricultural green development. Therefore, the purchase and application of green production machinery have become a realistic activity in modern agriculture in recent years. However, there was an outstandingly insufficient matching between the purchase and use of agricultural green production machinery in practice. It is thus necessary to explore the purchase intention and behavior of agricultural operation entities, thereby promoting the application of green production machinery. Particularly, the existing research was mostly focused on the purchase of traditional agricultural machinery, rather than green production machinery. In this study, a theoretical framework was constructed to determine the purchase intention and behavior of green production machinery using different agricultural operation entities, according to the theory of planned behavior (TPB). Six theoretical hypotheses were also proposed in terms of the relationships between the purchase intention and the personality characteristics of agricultural operation entities, attitude toward behavior, subjective norms, perceived behavior control, as well as the relationship between purchase intention and purchase behavior. A structural equation was then established for the purchase behavior of green production machinery. Several economically developed regions in Jiangsu Province of China were selected as sample areas, and the social survey data was collected by means of questionnaire distribution, symposium, and household survey. The reliability and validity of the model were verified, as well as the theoretical hypotheses using AMOS software. The results support five hypotheses, but one hypothesis was rejected, namely, the relationship between attitude toward behavior and purchase intention. Among them, the intention of agricultural operation entities to purchase agricultural green production machinery was most affected by subjective norms, where the path coefficient was 0.5. The Followed was the perceived behavior control, where the path coefficient was 0.434. It was found that the relationship between the attitude toward behavior and purchase intention was maladjusted as a path coefficient of -0.208. There was a significant positive relationship between purchase intention and purchase behavior, where the path coefficient was 0.693. All the relationships above passed the 1% significance test. In addition, the personality characteristics of agricultural operation entities presented the different effects on the purchase intention. Specifically, the identity and operation scale presented a significant but small effect on the purchase intention, which were 0.146 and 0.053, respectively. The education level and age showed no significant effect on the purchase intention. Consequently, the theoretical framework and structural equation can be widely expected to explain the characteristics and influential factors of purchase behavior for the green production machinery in the agricultural operators. Some suggestions were also made to further strengthen the publicity of green production in a social atmosphere of green production, in order to guide the restrictive role of social norms. More importantly, it is necessary to improve the subsidy policy and guidance for the purchase of agricultural machinery, to encourage large-scale land operation, and to enhance the actual demand of agricultural production and operation entities for purchasing green production machinery. Moreover, it also requires the R & D capacity of manufacturers and the effective supply of agricultural green production machinery. The final goal is to achieve more and better use of agricultural green production machinery. © 2021, Editorial Department of the Transactions of the Chinese Society of Agricultural Engineering. All right reserved.