From Agri-Waste to Sustainable Use: A Case Study of Straw Management Reform in Northeast China

Sustainable agri-waste utilization is a crucial stage in transforming agricultural production into low-carbon. Straws, as the primary agricultural waste, are not effectively reused by farmers in developing countries. Burning straws can be widely observed and it is one of the main sources of CO₂ and PM_2.5 emissions from the agricultural sector. Since 2013, China has reformed its agri-waste governance to promote sustainable use of straws. However, few studies have analyzed the structural change and field operation of its agri-waste policies, and limited evidence has been drawn on the effectiveness of these policies. The objective of our article is to investigate the reform of China's straw governance and examine the effectiveness of such reform with a specific focus on farmers in the Northeast China. We used both qualitative and quantitative approaches to investigate how China's straw governance reform was designed and implemented, and how effectiveness of such reforms in addressing the field straw-burning issue in Northeast China. Field observation shows that the reforms were designed and implemented with two hybrid policy instruments: (a) a command-and-control (C&C) measures that used satellite-based straw-burning data to evaluate the straw-burning monitoring performance of local governments and village committees and (b) a market-based instruments (MBIs) that provide subsidies to the industries and cooperatives for sustainable straw use. The empirical results show that reform significantly decreased farmers' straw burning behavior and increased their straw field returning and straw bailing for power generation.