Impact of smartphone use on production outsourcing: evidence from litchi farming in southern China
2022
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Details
Title
Impact of smartphone use on production outsourcing: evidence from litchi farming in southern China
Author(s)
Cai, Yi
Sun, Yucheng
Qi, Wene
Yi, Famin
Sun, Yucheng
Qi, Wene
Yi, Famin
Issue Date
Sep 06 2022
Publication Type
Journal Article
DOI and Other Identifiers
10.22434/IFAMR2021.0155
Record Identifier
https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/324641
ISSN
1559-2448
Language
English
Published in
International Food and Agribusiness Management Review
International Food and Agribusiness Management Review
Volume
25
Issue
4
Page Range
671
682
682
Note
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.