Key factors affecting the adoption willingness, behavior, and willingness-behavior consistency of farmers regarding photovoltaic agriculture in China

Abstract Agricultural fossil energy consumption increases carbon dioxide emissions and is a critical concern in China. Photovoltaic agriculture refers to combining agricultural activities and photovoltaic power generation without changing the agricultural land and affecting agricultural production. It is a new agricultural production approach and has been identified as an important measure to deal with environmental pollution and fossil energy consumption. The goal of this study was to analyze the key factors that influence the willingness, behavior, and willingness-behavior consistency of farmers to adopt photovoltaic agriculture. A survey with 643 participants was conducted in China. The bivariate probit model and the binary logistic regression were used to test nineteen influencing factors. The results showed that the proportion of farmers whose adoption willingness was consistent with the adoption behavior was 37.1%, whereas 62.9% of farmers exhibited inconsistency between adoption willingness and adoption behavior. Differences were observed in the key factors influencing the willingness, behavior, and willingness-behavior consistency of adopting photovoltaic agriculture. The usefulness perception and technical training had significant positive impacts on the adoption willingness, adoption behavior, and willingness-behavior consistency of the farmers, whereas the photovoltaic investment cost had a negative impact. The results of this study provide an understanding of the factors influencing the promotion and dissemination of photovoltaic agriculture, a basis for optimizing related policies, and references to facilitate the implementation of photovoltaic agriculture in rural areas in other countries.