1. Introduction
China is the world’s largest citrus-producing region and boasts the largest agglomeration of smallholders in agriculture worldwide. For smallholder citrus farmers, specialized and moderately sized cultivation represents a crucial approach for enhancing agricultural revenue [
1]. Since the reform and opening up of China in 1978, the agricultural sector has been dominated by smallholders who operate within the household contract responsibility system, which has observed significant growth in the past few decades. Meanwhile, rapidly rising off-farm wages due to industrialization continue to attract farmers towards employment opportunities in urban areas, rendering small-scale farming financially less attractive. Consequently, scale upgrading, in terms of land transfer, is developing rapidly to obtain higher returns. With the wide diffusion and rapid adoption of modern technologies, Chinese citrus production is increasingly characterized by monocultures of commercial citrus cultivars. However, the high returns of specialized cultivation are often accompanied by higher agricultural risks as compared to diversified cropping [
2]. Additionally, the rapid development of increasingly specialized intensive farming poses new challenges for biodiversity and sustainable agricultural development [
3]. In fact, agricultural diversification is emerging as a viable solution for enhancing food security and addressing sustainability issues in intensified agriculture [
4]. Thus, in smallholder citrus-farming systems, striking a balance between economies of scale, risks, and sustainability is becoming an important question that cannot be overlooked and deserves timely investigation.
Guangxi Autonomous Region (a province equivalent) is the largest citrus-growing region in China, with approximately 613,000 hectares of citrus cultivation. In recent decades, citrus growers have increased significantly, with many farmers converting their crops from cereals to citrus in pursuit of higher agricultural returns. While citrus cultivation has boosted farmers’ incomes and the regional rural economy in the last decade, it may also lead to the loss of agrobiodiversity and ecological issues [
5]. Citrus is a perennial crop that usually needs 3–5 years to bear fruits, and this relatively long investment cycle exposes smallholders to potential risks, such as volatile citrus prices or serious plant diseases (e.g., the Huanglongbing disease) [
6,
7]. Despite the leading role that citrus plays in Guangxi, many small-household farmers only use part of their land for citrus cultivation and retain land to grow diversified crops, according to the farm household survey conducted in this study. It is not surprising that farming is susceptible to both climate and market risks, given that small farmers often resort to crop diversification as a means of managing such challenges [
8]. Therefore, crop diversification plays a natural insurance role for smallholders [
9,
10], who are generally risk-averse [
11,
12]. Many farmers are not willing to engage in high-risk, high-return agricultural production investment and are cautious about investment on a larger scale, new technologies, and the adoption of new varieties [
2,
12]. Therefore, risk perceptions and risk attitudes of farmers may be key reasons for farmers’ crop diversification [
13], which require scholarly understanding.
Based on the empirical literature, it appears that past occurrences of extreme risk events can motivate crop diversification [
14,
15,
16]. Thus, risk perceptions and risk attitudes are often used to interpret farmers’ decision making, including land transfer and farm scale investment [
2,
17], fertilizer and pesticide use decisions [
9,
18], willingness to pay agricultural insurance, and capacity for coping with climate change [
16,
19]. While this literature is growing, the existing studies generally center on a certain driver or constraint of crop diversification while presenting little evidence regarding possible impacts of considering risk perception and risk preference jointly, especially their roles in land use for citrus specialization and crop diversification. Moreover, risk perceptions and risk attitudes are closely linked to farmers’ decision-making processes, necessitating careful disentanglement in order to gain a more accurate understanding of their effects on various on-farm diversity outcomes. Therefore, it is crucial to promptly address these gaps. The measurement of farmers’ risk perception and risk preferences can be effectively carried out using Likert scales and lottery choice experiments [
11,
20,
21,
22,
23,
24,
25]. Additionally, the level of diversification at the farm level can be evaluated through well-established methods such as the Shannon index and count index [
26,
27,
28,
29]. These approaches lay the foundation for further research establishing quantitative relationships between these three factors.
The objective of this study is to empirically examine the potential correlations between the risk perceptions, risk preferences, and land use decisions of citrus farmers with regard to the choice of citrus specialization or crop diversification. We employ a comprehensive rural household survey conducted in Guangxi Province, a significant agricultural area located in Southern China. Due to the karst topography of Guangxi, the land is fragmented and many small farmers grow citrus and other crops simultaneously. Therefore, Guangxi presents an ideal context for our study due to its significance in the cultivation of citrus crops. We postulate that farmers’ risk preferences and perceived risks in regard to citrus farming play critical roles in land use decision making, where risk-averse farmers with higher perceived risks tend to opt for diversified land use. This research aims to enhance our comprehension of smallholder citrus farmers’ crop diversification strategies in China and similar contexts. The findings of this study can contribute to the empirical literature on the association between subjective risk perceptions, attitudes, and decision making in relation to specialized or diversified land use choices for horticultural crops.
The rest of this article is structured as follows.
Section 2 presents the theoretical analysis framework.
Section 3 describes the data sources, research design, and empirical methods.
Section 4 reports estimation results from baseline models, as well as robustness tests.
Section 5 discusses potential policy implications. Finally,
Section 6 concludes the study.
5. Discussion
The aforementioned findings consistently indicate that perceptions of and attitudes towards risk exert significant influences on the decision-making process of farmers pertaining to crop land. Incorporating multiple perception measures and the lottery choice experiment, it was found that subjective risk aversion behavior, to a certain extent, hinders the specialization process of small citrus farmers and promotes crop diversification in agricultural ecosystems. Small farmers’ crop diversification decisions are significantly affected by the perceived risk and subjective risk-averse attitudes associated with the specialized cultivation of citrus, as well as the risk mitigation effects of crop diversification. The findings of this study align with those of existing relevant studies, emphasizing the significance of crop diversification in addressing the risks and uncertainties associated with climate change and multiple agricultural risks for small farmers [
70]. Small-scale farmers who implement a multi-season cropping system, incorporating long-rains crops, short-rains crops, permanent crops, and fruit crops, are able to mitigate the uncertainties posed by droughts or rainfall fluctuations [
71]. In response to extreme climatic events, farm households primarily rely on crop diversification and crop variety adjustments as their primary adaptation strategies [
72]. The decision of farmers to specialize in rubber cultivation is influenced by their perception of risk, whereby a higher risk perception increases the likelihood of diversifying and cultivating multiple crops [
15]. Additionally, farmers exhibiting higher risk aversion are more inclined to adopt farm diversification strategies [
25]. The presence of production risks and risk aversion significantly promotes the adoption of crop diversification strategies and expansion into livestock production by households [
16]. However, this study does not provide evidence on whether diversification among small-scale farmers results in increased income and welfare. Nonetheless, previous research has indicated that increasing crop diversity can lead to enhanced land productivity and lower production costs and open up market opportunities for households while facilitating self-consumption. It appears that farmers engaged in crop diversification tend to generate greater benefits compared to those specializing in a single crop [
28,
29].
Compared to specialized farms, crop diversification among small-scale farmers may not necessarily lead to higher profits [
70]. However, crop diversification among small-scale farmers not only helps to mitigate agricultural risks but also has the potential to enhance biodiversity within farmland ecosystems, thereby promoting sustainable agricultural development. As a crucial region of high biodiversity in the southern region of China, Guangxi has undergone significant transformations in its land use patterns during previous decades, transitioning from conventional agricultural practices to the cultivation of specialized tropical and subtropical fruit crops [
73]. This trend has resulted in a multitude of adverse ecological consequences, notably a reduction in agrobiodiversity and a subsequent risk to livelihood sustainability [
74]. The econometric results suggest that crop diversification may be an effective strategy for coping with such livelihood risks. Smallholder citrus farmers, who always show a risk-averse attitude and are aware of the higher risks of citrus farming, are less likely to specialize in citrus farming and are more likely to plant other crops in addition to citrus. Although there are numerous citrus growers among them, small citrus farmers still prefer to intercrop citrus with a diverse range of other crops, maintaining a high crop diversity index. In some sense, this finding is consistent with the long-held recognition that risk-averse small farmers may diversify their portfolios of agricultural production as a risk management strategy to reduce farm income variation [
25]. The implementation of land use diversification appears to present a viable strategy for managing potential risks in the context of citrus cultivation, while simultaneously affording positive spillover effects on farmland ecosystem biodiversity and fostering sustainable agricultural production objectives.
The confirmed roles of risk perception and risk attitude in decision making regarding crop diversification and land use warrant immediate policy implications concerning environmental and agricultural sustainability. While implementing risk insurance programs could enhance the specialization level of citrus cultivation in Guangxi, the current imperfect financial market necessitates that small-scale farmers rely on crop diversification to mitigate risks. The diversified production methods of small-scale farmers have positive effects on environmental protection and food security. To safeguard these benefits and to further assist small-scale farmers in reducing risks and increasing their income, it is worth considering the provision of policy support and ecological compensation from the government and relevant organizations. First, to prioritize food security and curb the competition for land between staple crops and citrus cultivation, it is important to assist small-scale farmers in comprehending the risks and potential benefits associated with specialized citrus farming. This approach can effectively discourage indiscriminate expansion into single horticultural crops, leading to improved food security, decreased non-grain cultivation on arable land, and enhanced crop diversity within farmland. Second, crop diversification may enhance biodiversity while addressing agricultural risks [
75]. Maintaining a crop portfolio is an important strategy for smallholders to cope with agricultural production risks [
76], especially in underdeveloped areas such as Guangxi, China. Guiding and supporting smallholders in Western China towards crop diversification can promote the sustainable development of agriculture that can also meet biodiversity conservation goals. Third, smallholders in ethnic minority areas, usually less developed areas [
77], seem to have a stronger willingness to diversify their planting, possibly due to risk aversion. Crop diversification is the main strategy used to cope with natural risks in these areas, characterized by prevalent poverty and underdeveloped rural financial markets [
77]. Greater risk perception and risk aversion have also promoted a certain degree of crop diversification on farmland in these areas. Therefore, for China’s less developed regions that have a large number of small-scale farmers who have been active for a long time, it may not always be imperative to transform agriculture towards specialized and single-crop cultivation. However, it is necessary to provide small-scale farmers in these regions with essential economic support and ecological compensation in order to maintain crop diversity. Ensuring the preservation of a specific degree of agricultural diversity among smallholder farmers is not only beneficial for their agricultural risk management but also contributes to the achievement of sustainable agricultural development goals.
Although our findings do not provide direct support for the efficacy of these policies, they merit thorough consideration by both central and local governments aspiring to achieve sustainable agricultural development and promote rural revitalization in China’s rural areas [
78]. The comparative analysis of the count index and Shannon index, as measures of citrus farmers’ crop diversification in Guangxi, further confirms the need to consider the contributions of diversified smallholder crop cultivation to agroecosystems and biodiversity. Whilst the outcomes may exhibit localized disparities within emerging economies, their potential instructive value may be extrapolated to regions possessing comparable agro-ecological circumstances or in parallel developmental stages, wherein agricultural stakeholders possess congruent risk attitudes and risk perceptions.
6. Conclusions
Utilizing data from a recent survey of small-scale citrus farmers in Guangxi Province, China, this study evaluated the effects of farmers’ risk perceptions and risk preferences on their land use decisions, specifically with regard to the choice between specializing in citrus production or engaging in diversified crop farming. Through the estimation of an IV-Probit model and 2SLS model, it was found that several perceived risks of citrus farming, as well as risk aversion determined based on a lottery choice experiment, significantly affect farmers’ probability of planting diversified crops together with citrus. These results were further compared with estimates from crop diversification regression models, with the Poisson model and OLS model using the count index and Shannon index as explanatory variables, which confirmed that farmers’ risk perceptions in citrus farming and their risk-averse attitudes significantly contribute to higher levels of crop diversification. Our main findings regarding small citrus farmers’ crop diversification were further validated in a robustness exercise, where interaction variables were added to the Shannon index regression model for considering the possible relationship between farmers’ risk perceptions and risk attitudes. The present findings underscore the salient contribution of risk preferences in influencing the horticultural agricultural production of smallholder farmers, thus bearing significant policy ramifications for fostering sustainable agricultural development and smallholder farming practices in Western China.
Our study contributes to the existing literature by delineating the influence of farmers’ risk perceptions and risk attitudes on specialized or diversified horticultural crop farming conduct in a typical citrus-planting area in China. Furthermore, we validated the consistency effects of different crop diversification indices and highlighted the necessity of formulating policy measures that cater to small-scale farmers’ crop diversification practices in order to enhance their cost-effectiveness and welfare. Nonetheless, the study’s limitations, such as its cross-sectional nature and geographical specificity, collectively necessitate further research to establish the generalizability of the findings. These results indicate that risk preferences exert a significantly greater impact than risk perceptions, as gauged in this study, and require further examination through alternative risk preference elicitation methodologies using a larger and more representative sample of farmers. The crop diversity of smallholder farmers has a positive impact on sustainable agricultural development and biodiversity, but the questions of how to maintain small farmers’ crop diversification and improve their welfare in the development of agricultural modernization need to be studied in the future.