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Journal of Food, Agriculture & Environment Vol.8 (3&4): 751-753. 2010

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Farmers purchase intention of agricultural machinery, an application of the theory of planned behavior in China
Jianying Feng, Zetian Fu, Xiaoping Zheng and Weisong Mu *
China Agricultural University, 209#, No. 17, Qinghua Donglu, Beijing, 100083, P. R. China. *e-mail: wsmu@cau.edu.cn, fjying0306@163.com
Received 9 July 2010, accepted 22 October 2010.

Abstract
This paper aimed at farmers purchase behavior for agricultural machinery in China, proposed a model of farmers purchase intention based on the theory of planned behavior (TPB), gained data from 12 provinces by questionnaire, adopted logistic regression to estimate the model. Research results reveal that significant factors influencing farmers purchase intention for agricultural machinery are educational level, income, governmental policy, attitude (cognitive component and affective component) and perceived behavior control (convenience), the effect extent and direction of these factors are discrepant. The results also prove TPB is an effective and valuable theory in studying farmers purchase behavior. Key words: Purchase intention, farmers behavior, agricultural machinery, the theory of planned behavior.

Introduction Agricultural machinery is a kind of crucial producer goods for farmers as it plays an important role in agricultural industry. With the development of economy, great changes have taken place in agricultural machinery market in China over the past decades, it shifted from a sellers market to a buyers market and now farmers needs and preference are the leading factors in the market. Farmers decision-making and purchase behavior will largely influence on the development of agricultural machinery market and further the development of the whole agricultural mechanization. Several researchers have studied the economic and management issues of agricultural machinery in China, such as the international competitiveness of agricultural products 1, the development environment of agricultural machinery industry 2 and the regional characters of agricultural mechanization 3. However, few literatures focused on farmers (the main consumers in agricultural machinery market) needs and their purchase behavior for agricultural machinery, which is a vital problem in modern market economy. There are many theories on study consumers purchase intention, consumers attitudes model 4, the maximizing perceived value theory 5, the minimizing perceived risk theory 6, the theory of planned behavior (TPB) 7, etc. Among these, TPB has been proved effective in predicting consumers rational consuming behavior by a large number of researches. This paper aims to examine farmers purchase intention of agricultural machinery based on TPB, analyze factors affecting farmers purchase intention and to what extent those factors can influence.

Materials and Methods According to TPB, consumers behavior is directly determined by behavioral intention, which is a function of attitude (consumers general feeling of favorable or unfavorable for the behavior), subjective norm (consumer perceived opinion of other people in relation to the behavior), and perceived behavioral control (consumers subjective belief about how difficult it will be for him/her to implement the behavior) 8. On the basis of TPB, considering farmers purchase behavior for agricultural machinery in China is also influenced by governmental policy, and consumers individual characters, social and economic factors are also essential factors that will affect purchase behavior in modern consumer behavior methods, so the paper proposed the following hypotheses. Farmers purchase intention of agricultural machinery is influenced by following factors: consumers individual characters, social and economic factors, governmental policy, factors belong to TPB which are attitude, subjective norm, perceived behavior control. ABC model of attitude was adopted to estimate farmers attitude. Perceived behavior control includes two aspects: convenience and consumers self-efficacy. Convenience refers to those external conditions and resources when carrying out the behavior, self-efficacy is consumers selfcontrol belief to carry out the behavior. Fig. 1 describes conceptual framework of the paper. A questionnaire was designed based on the research framework. The questionnaire survey was conducted in 2007 and more samples were added in 2008 through face-to-face interviews. In view of those farmers who had purchased

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Affective component
Behavior component
Cognitive component
Individual characters

Gender

Table 1. Demographic description of respondents.

Subject Percent No. Male 276 83.4 Gender Female 55 16.6 18-30 63 19.0 31-40 82 24.8 Age 41-50 141 42.6 51-60 39 11.8 Above 6 1.8 <Primary school 11 3.3 Primary school 63 19.0 Educational Junior school 173 52.3 level Senior school 68 20.5 College and 16 4.8 above <3 139 42.0 3 78 23.6 Number of laborers in 4 73 22.1 household 5 26 7.9 >5 15 4.5 < 2,000 25 7.6 2,001-5,000 75 22.7 Average 5,001-10,000 83 25.1 annual income per household 10,001-15,000 64 19.3 CNY 15,001-20,000 50 15.1 >20,000 34 10.3 Farmland area 0-53.3 331 100 ha Category Demographic variable

Age
Educational level

Attitude

Subjective Norm
Convenience

Purchase intention of AM

Purchase behavior of AM

Income

Perceived Behavior Control

Self-efficacy

Social & Economic factors

Governmental policy

Labor number
Farmland area

Figure 1. Conceptual framework about farmers purchase intention for agricultural machinery (AM).

experience would have deeper perceptions about their purchase behavior, the provinces having high usage of agricultural machinery in China were selected. Farmers in Beijing, Tianjin, Hebei, Henan, Inner Mongolia, Heilongjiang, Jilin, Liaoning, Shandong, Shanxi, Anhui and Zhejiang 12 provinces were chosen as the respondents. Variables in questionnaire were analyzed by SPSS 11.5 software; Binary Logistic Regression was adopted as the econometric model to explore to what extent the independent variables can explain the dependent variable. Results and Discussion Out of 380 participants who were surveyed, 360 responded. Twenty-nine ineffective questionnaires were deleted, 331 valid samples were collected finally, and the overall response rate was 87.1%. Characters of respondents: Table 1 shows the demographics and social and economic characters of samples. Within the gender group, the participants mostly were males (83.4%), since males are the main users and operators of agricultural machinery in China; they are more familiar with the questions involved in agricultural machinery. The age group was mostly 41-50 years old (42.6%), educational level assembled junior school (52.3%), this accords with the actual educational level in Chinas rural areas. The laborer number of household is a little small, below 3 person accounted for 42.0%, average annual income of most households was medium level 5,001-10,000 CNY, data of farmland areas were dispersed. Purchase experience, intention and plan: There were 201 among 331 participants who had ever bought agricultural machinery, it was a big share of 60.7%; and the main three kinds of agricultural machinery they had were tractor, agricultural vehicle and seeder. Of participants 65.3% showed positive intention about buying agricultural machinery in the next 2-3 years (Table 2). Among the 216 respondents who chose Yes, 127 planned to buy tractor (58.8%), 52 might buy combine harvester (24.1%), other machinery they planned to buy were mainly seeder, agricultural vehicle and corn binder.
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Table 2. Purchase intention of respondents.

Purchase intention Yes No Statistic value 1 0 Subject (no.) 216 115 Percent (%) 65.3 34.7

Factors influencing purchase intention: Binary logistic regressionwas employed to analyze the data. Table 3 shows the model estimation results: -2LL value 327.038, Cox and Snell R square 0.257, significance 0.000, the model is effective. The results reveal that educational level (x3), income (x5), the governmental policy (x7), cognitive component (x8) and affective component (x9) of attitude and convenience (x12) are the significant factors that influence farmers purchase intention (Sig.<0.1); whereas other variables are not significant. The impact extent of each independent variable on the dependent variable is discrepant. In the variables of farmers individual characters, educational level is significant when Sig.<0.1. The regression coefficient is positive, the higher farmers education level, the stronger their purchase intention. The average annual income of household is significant in social and economic factors (Sig.<0.01). Negative regression coefficient reveals that the higher the familys income, the weaker purchase intention of agricultural machinery. It is opposite to initial expectation. Further study found that many families of high income already had agricultural machinery, this would weaken their re-purchase intention; on the other hand, families of low-level income are eager to change their existing economic condition, seeing the farmers having agricultural machinery achieved high income, they will generate stronger

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Table 3. Logistic regression results of factors influencing farmers purchase intention.

Independent variables Gender(X1) Age(X2) Educational level(X3) Labor number (X4) Income(X5) Farmland area(X6) Governmental policy(X7) Cognitive component(X8) Affective component(X9) Behavior component(X10) Subjective Norm(X11) Convenience (X12) Self-efficacy (X13) Constant B -0.324 0.033 0.361 0.183 -0.268 0.002 0.650 1.046 0.343 0.259 -0.071 0.279 -0.043 -8.485 S.E. 0.391 0.149 0.184 0.123 0.098 0.003 0.248 0.223 0.190 0.310 0.219 0.168 0.188 1.570 Wald 0.687 0.050 3.824 2.221 7.551 0.723 6.843 22.056 3.264 0.699 0.104 2.776 0.053 29.193 df 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 Sig. 0.407 0.823 0.051 0.136 0.006 0.395 0.009 0.000 0.071 0.403 0.747 0.096 0.818 0.000 Exp(B) 0.723 1.034 1.434 1.201 .765 1.002 1.915 2.847 1.410 1.296 0.932 1.322 0.958 0.000

machinery in China. This may be a valuable application of TPB. Conclusions This paper studied farmers purchase intention for agricultural machinery in China on the basis of the theory of planned behavior. The results indicate that most farmers purchase intention is positive and they plan to buy agricultural machinery. The factors mainly influencing farmers purchase intention are educational level, income, governmental policy, cognitive component and affective component of attitude and convenience, but the effect of gender, age, laborer number, farmland areas, behavior component of attitude, subjective norm and self-efficacy is not significant. The research also proves TPB is effective in predicting farmers purchase behavior in China. However, market is changing constantly, and farmers purchase psychology is difficult to describe accurately, so this paper is merely a suggestive template on farmers purchase intention research. A survey based on wider samples and other theories will be necessary. References
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purchase intention under the demonstration effect. Yet their purchase power is limited, their purchase intention is difficult to change into actual purchase behavior. Governmental policy has important influence on farmers purchase intention. The more support policies from government, the more positive farmers purchase intention will be. If governments support farmers to buy and manage agricultural machinery, and give subsidies on finance, then farmers entry barriers of usage and purchase of agricultural machinery will reduce. When farmers positivity is aroused, they certainly generate positive purchase intention. Within the three components of attitude, behavior component is not significant. Cognitive component is highly significant, through rational perception, when farmers know well about the role, quality and performance of agricultural machinery, then their intention was increased. The affective component has positive coefficient and positive effect on purchase intention. According to the theory of consumer behavior, consumers purchase behavior is affected by affective reflection; the results prove it applicable even in the consumption of durable goods like agricultural machinery. Subjective norm has no significant effect; this is not coincident to hypothesis. For many families, buying agricultural machinery is a big household expenditure, so the purchase behavior is very discrete. The purchase decision mainly based on their own evaluations, and others opinion is not very important relatively. This shows farmers purchase behavior is becoming mature and rational gradually. Convenience is significant in perceived behavior control. When farmers feel more convenience in purchasing and maintaining agricultural machinery, their purchase intention will increase. So, the improvements of sales and service network are helpful to positive intention. Self-efficacy is not significant. More than 50% of participants were above junior school educational level in the survey; agricultural machinery corporations conduct many training and guidance activities to increase their competitiveness in the market. Hence for most farmers, the technical barriers of operating and managing agricultural machinery reduce, worrying about inability to operate machinery correctly is not the main obstacle. Except subjective norm, the other elements in TPB were proved effective in predicting farmers purchase intention for agricultural

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