Does the adoption of direct-seeded rice affect pesticide use? Evidence from China

In China, farmers have increasingly adopted direct-seeded rice (DSR). While various impacts of DSR have been studied, limited evidence exists regarding the effect of DSR adoption on pesticide use. This study examines the impact of DSR adoption on pesticide use utilizing data from a 2018 survey of 982 rice farmers in China's Yangtze River Basin. The endogenous treatment-regression and switching regression models are employed to address self-selection bias. The results indicate that, after accounting for self-selection, DSR adopters spend 401.72 CNY ha^–1 more on pesticides compared to non-adopters. Although DSR adoption significantly increases the use of insecticides, fungicides and herbicides, its impact is most pronounced for insecticide expenditure and least pronounced for herbicide expenditure. The findings remain robust when altering the dependent variable, truncating the research sample, and modifying the estimation method. Heterogeneous analysis reveals that DSR adoption has a stronger positive impact on pesticide expenditure among farmers below 60 years of age, with at least 6 years of education, and managing rice sown areas less than 2 ha. Based on these findings, this study recommends enhancing complementary techniques for DSR, improving the dissemination of DSR cultivation technologies, and strengthening socialized services. This research provides a comprehensive assessment of DSR's advantages and disadvantages, particularly regarding pesticide use, offering important policy implications for pesticide reduction.