Norms triumph over self-interest! The role of perceived values and different norms on sustainable agricultural practices

Environmental sustainability and public health are faced with tremendous threat caused by the agri-food system, and it has reached a consensus that the agri-food system must be transformed to be more efficient, healthy, and sustainable. Promoting farmers to implement sustainable agricultural practices (SAPs) is a critical path to accelerate this transformation. This study is to understand farmers’ intention to adopt Eco-breeding, a typical SAPs with Chinese characteristics and market potential, based on the perspectives of self-interested, altruistic, and social pressures, and explore how farmers make trade-offs when personal interests and norms conflict. We conducted field surveys on 600 livestock and poultry farmers and proceeded a comprehensive empirical analysis involving direct, indirect, and moderating effects tests. The results show perceived values, personal norms, and subjective norms accounted for 58.5% of the intention variance. Subjective norms are foremost predictors, and perceived values and personal norms has significant positive effects. Personal norms are mainly motivated by the awareness of consequences and ascribed responsibility. Remarkably, the results indicate that personal norms and subjective norms positively moderate the negative effects of perceived risks on intention. When these two norms exceed thresholds, the negative effects of perceived risks disappear. In addition to self-interested motives, this study highlights the importance of norms in shaping farmers’ intention to adopt Eco-breeding and finally provides guidelines for designing effective promotion policy.