Enhancing environmental sustainability in transferred farmlands through rural e-commerce: insights from China

The issue of farmers neglecting environmental concerns in transferred farmlands poses a serious challenge, contradicting the long-term ecological goals of establishing resource-efficient and environment-friendly agriculture. Amidst the pivotal trend of moderately scaled agricultural operations, rural e-commerce holds promise as a catalyst and driving force for enhancing long-term environmental governance of transferred lands. The effectiveness and mechanisms of this potential, however, remain to be empirically examined. This study gathers panel data on environmental positive and negative externalities from six provinces in China, spanning the period from 2013 to 2022, encompassing 6372 farmers. A quasi-natural experiment of farmers' e-commerce participation is designed using difference-in-differences methodology (DID), propensity score matching (PSM), and moderating models. The primary findings are as follows: E-commerce participation increases farmers' positive environmental inputs on transferred lands, such as water-saving irrigation, adoption of social services, and preservation of traditional varieties. Simultaneously, it decreases negative environmental inputs, such as the consumption of fertilizers, pesticides, and agricultural films. The environmental sustainability effects of e-commerce vary across the eastern, central, and western regions of China. E-commerce has a more pronounced impact on agricultural social services and chemical pollutants in the eastern and central regions, while its influence is more significant on water-saving irrigation and variety preservation in the western region. Land transfer forms and supply order contracts do not directly promote farmers' environmentally friendly cultivation practices. Instead, they catalyze the environmental effects of e-commerce through a significant positive interaction term. These conclusions hold after matching for e-commerce participation propensity, while passing sensitivity tests, parallel trend tests, and placebo tests. Consequently, rural e-commerce, without compromising farmers' income, enhances the proactiveness of farmers in environmental conservation, transforms agricultural management practices, and effectively reduces rural non-point source pollution. Policy recommendations include reducing institutional barriers to rural e-commerce participation at the national level, encouraging the establishment of region-specific agricultural environmental sustainability goals, and leveraging the rural e-commerce industry chain to establish a nationwide environmental credit database and incentive mechanism.