Phage therapy adoption in ruminant farming: A mediated model of environmental concern, policy pressure, and AMR awareness
Yuanyuan Ma
School of Digital Commerce, Jiangsu Vocational College of Business
Nanjiang Xiong
School of Digital Commerce, Jiangsu Vocational College of Business
Jiaqi Wu
School of Digital Commerce, Jiangsu Vocational College of Business
Xiaoqin Zhang
School of Digital Commerce, Jiangsu Vocational College of Business
DOI: https://doi.org/10.59429/pest.v8i2.14495
Keywords: bacteriophage; antimicrobial resistance; ruminants farming; structural equation modeling; technology adoption
Abstract
Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) will harm global ruminants production but phage therapy use is hardly adopted. This study builds and empirically tests a mediation model where farmer AMR awareness serves as a mediator of the impacts of environmental concern, policy pressure, and technology perception on adoption intention. Using survey data from 342 ruminant farmers in four Chinese provinces (2025-2026) and Structural Equation Modeling results indicate that environmental concern has the largest direct impact (β=0. 462, p < 0. 001), with AMR awareness mediating 34.7% of its overall effect. And the policy pressure (β=0.318), the technology perception (β=0.247), all is also effect on the adoption. Model is responsible for 54.7% of the variance in adoption intention. It can be found that awareness about how AMR is risky is a very important gate for phage therapy in small ruminants.
References
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