Browsing by Author "Ma W"

Now showing 1 - 3 of 3
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    Can citrus farmers earn more from selling online
    (Elsevier B.V on behalf of the Economic Society of Australia, Queensland, 2023-12) Zhang H; Ma W; Li J; Yang W
    Online sales are essential for linking smallholder farmers to a wide range of markets. In essence, online sales not only influence the income received from selling a specific product but also generate spillover effects on total farm income and household income because they promote the sales of other agricultural products and generate regional off-farm work opportunities (e.g. product sorting, packaging, and delivery). Taking citrus as an example, this study explores the income effects of online sales with a focus on net returns from citrus production, net farm income, and household income. We used an endogenous treatment regression model to address the self-selection bias issues of online sales and estimated data collected from 926 citrus-producing households in Jiangxi Province, China. The results show that online citrus sales boost income growth in rural China. Specifically, online sales significantly increased net returns from citrus production, net farm income, and household income by 5,000 Yuan/capita, 8,580 Yuan/capita, and 17,830 Yuan/capita, respectively. The income-enhancing effects of online sales are greater for female household heads than they are for their male counterparts. Our findings emphasise the importance of promoting online sales to improve rural household welfare.
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    Factors affecting online shopping frequency: lessons from New Zealand.
    (Springer Nature, 2022-05-04) Ma W; Gan C; Vatsa P; Yang W; Zheng H
    During the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown, the number of people shopping online has increased worldwide, and New Zealand is no exception. To date, little is known about the online shopping behaviours of New Zealanders in a pandemic environment. This paper provides the first attempt by exploring the factors affecting online shopping frequency in New Zealand, a country widely regarded as a paragon of excellence for containing the COVID-19 pandemic. A Poisson regression model is utilized to analyze data collected through an online survey between July and November 2020. The empirical results show that people's online shopping frequency is positively affected by payment convenience, competitive pricing, living in the city, and the number of children. The perceived effectiveness of the government's action in combating COVID-19, having poor past online shopping experiences, and being married reduce online shopping frequency.
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    Fungi regulate the response of the N2O production process to warming and grazing in a Tibetan grassland
    (Copernicus Publications on behalf of the European Geosciences Union, 2018-07-20) Zhong L; Wang S; Xu X; Wang Y; Rui Y; Zhou X; Shen Q; Wang J; Jiang L; Luo C; Gu T; Ma W; Chen G; Kuzyakov Y
    Lack of understanding of the effects of warming and winter grazing on soil fungal contribution to the nitrous oxide (N2O) production process has limited our ability to predict N2O fluxes under changes in climate and land use management, because soil fungi play an important role in driving terrestrial N cycling. A controlled warming and winter grazing experiment that included control (C), winter grazing (G), warming (W) and warming with winter grazing (WG) was conducted to investigate the effects of warming and winter grazing on soil N2O production potential in an alpine meadow on the Tibetan Plateau. Our results showed that soil bacteria and fungi contributed 46 ± 2% and 54 ± 2% to nitrification, and 37 ± 3% and 63 ± 3% to denitrification in the control treatment, respectively. We conclude that soil fungi could be the main source of N2O production potential for the Tibetan alpine grasslands. In our results, neither warming nor winter grazing affected the activity of enzymes responsible for overall nitrification and denitrification. However, warming significantly increased the enzyme activity of bacterial nitrification and potential of N2O production from denitrification to 53 ± 2% and 55 ± 3%, respectively, but decreased them to 47 ± 2% and 45 ± 3%, respectively. Winter grazing had no such effects. Warming and winter grazing may not affect the soil N2O production potential, but climate warming can alter biotic pathways responsible for N2O production process. These findings confirm the importance of soil fungi in the soil N2O production process and how they respond to environmental and land use changes in alpine meadow ecosystems. Therefore, our results provide some new insights into ecological controls on the N2O production process and contribute to the development of an ecosystem nitrogen cycle model.