ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Sustain. Food Syst.
Sec. Agricultural and Food Economics
How effective is the quality constraint mechanism of agricultural socialized services? --Evidence from 1138 farmers in Shandong, China
Provisionally accepted
- 1Peking University, Beijing, China
- 2Qingdao Huanghai University, Qingdao, China
- 3Ocean University of China, Qingdao, China
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Constraint mechanism of agricultural socialized services have been widely established, so how effective is the quality constraint mechanism? However, the existing literature has not provided an answer to this question. Therefore, this paper theoretically analyzes the effect of quality constraint mechanism on agricultural socialized service and propose the hypothesis, then applies MESR model and 1138 farmers survey data, empirically examines the impact of constraint mechanism. The study finds that: 1) the constraint mechanism has a positive impact on the quality of agricultural socialized services. Based on contract theory, the intermediary mechanisms focuses on two aspects: implicit contracts of trust within familiar societies and explicit contracts of risk-sharing. 2) Under the consideration of counterfactual hypothesis, if farmers with low constraint do not construct constraint mechanisms, the quality of agricultural socialized services will decrease 22%. If farmers with high constraint do not construct constraint mechanisms, the quality of agricultural socialized services will decrease 33%. 3) The results of heterogeneity analysis show that the effect of quality constraint mechanisms on different farmer is in the order of part-time farmers, small-scale pure farmers and large professional farmers. The influence of quality constraint mechanism on different crops is in the order of vegetable, corn and wheat services. Accordingly, the government should guide farmers in signing service contracts, optimize the service standard system. This study can provide theoretical and practical guidelines for the construction of constraint mechanisms of agricultural socialized services.
Keywords: agricultural socialization, Agriculture, Constraint mechanism, Endogenous switching regression model, Service Quality
Received: 30 Oct 2025; Accepted: 30 Nov 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Yu, Zheng and zhang. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Lianghong Yu
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