{"title":"Impact of smartphone use on production outsourcing: evidence from litchi farming in southern China","authors":"Yihuai Cai, Yucheng Sun, Wen'e Qi, Famin Yi","doi":"10.22434/ifamr2021.0155","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"There is a great deal of evidence suggesting that information and communication technology (ICT) and agricultural production outsourcing can improve farm productivity and farmers’ welfare. However, less is known about the relationship between modern ICT use and agricultural production outsourcing. Drawing upon a survey of 855 litchi growers from southern China, this study estimates the effect of smartphone use on farmers’ decisions regarding agricultural production outsourcing. A novel genetic matching method is employed to mitigate the selection bias associated with self-selected smartphone use. Our result confirms the positive role of smartphone use in increasing the number of production tasks outsourced by litchi growers. Moreover, smartphone users are more likely to outsource both labor-intensive and technology-intensive tasks than nonusers. In addition, the treatment effect of smartphone use varies with each specific litchi production task. Our findings highlight the importance of improving smartphone adoption among farmers to promote agricultural production outsourcing.","PeriodicalId":49187,"journal":{"name":"International Food and Agribusiness Management Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.5000,"publicationDate":"2022-03-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"International Food and Agribusiness Management Review","FirstCategoryId":"96","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.22434/ifamr2021.0155","RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q3","JCRName":"AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS & POLICY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
There is a great deal of evidence suggesting that information and communication technology (ICT) and agricultural production outsourcing can improve farm productivity and farmers’ welfare. However, less is known about the relationship between modern ICT use and agricultural production outsourcing. Drawing upon a survey of 855 litchi growers from southern China, this study estimates the effect of smartphone use on farmers’ decisions regarding agricultural production outsourcing. A novel genetic matching method is employed to mitigate the selection bias associated with self-selected smartphone use. Our result confirms the positive role of smartphone use in increasing the number of production tasks outsourced by litchi growers. Moreover, smartphone users are more likely to outsource both labor-intensive and technology-intensive tasks than nonusers. In addition, the treatment effect of smartphone use varies with each specific litchi production task. Our findings highlight the importance of improving smartphone adoption among farmers to promote agricultural production outsourcing.
期刊介绍:
The IFAMR is an internationally recognized catalyst for discussion and inquiry on issues related to the global food and agribusiness system. The journal provides an intellectual meeting place for industry executives, managers, scholars and practitioners interested in the effective management of agribusiness firms and organizations.
IFAMR publishes high quality, peer reviewed, scholarly articles on topics related to the practice of management in the food and agribusiness industry. The Journal provides managers, researchers and teachers a forum where they can publish and acquire research results, new ideas, applications of new knowledge, and discussions of issues important to the worldwide food and agribusiness system. The Review is published electronically on this website.
The core values of the Review are as follows: excellent academic contributions; fast, thorough, and detailed peer reviews; building human capital through the development of good writing skills in scholars and students; broad international representation among authors, editors, and reviewers; a showcase for IFAMA’s unique industry-scholar relationship, and a facilitator of international debate, networking, and research in agribusiness.
The Review welcomes scholarly articles on business, public policy, law and education pertaining to the global food system. Articles may be applied or theoretical, but must relevant to managers or management scholars studies, industry interviews, and book reviews are also welcome.