Policy Support and Farmers’ Ecological Aquaculture Behavior: The Mediating Role of Ecological Awareness

Promoting farmers’ adoption of ecological aquaculture practices is important for the environmental sustainability and green transformation of aquaculture. Using survey data from 278 aquaculture farmers in Zhangzhou, Fujian Province, China, this study examines the relationship between policy support and farmers’ ecological aquaculture behavior. Policy support is measured across three dimensions—financial and credit support, agricultural insurance support, and technical and knowledge support—and the potential mediating role of ecological awareness is further examined. The results show that policy support is significantly and positively associated with farmers’ ecological aquaculture behavior, and each of the three dimensions also exhibits a significant positive association when examined separately. Further analysis indicates that policy support is significantly and positively associated with ecological awareness, which plays a significant partial mediating role in the relationship between policy support and farmers’ ecological aquaculture behavior. These findings suggest that promoting the environmental sustainability of aquaculture requires attention to farmers’ financial, risk-related, and technical constraints, as well as to the role of ecological awareness in linking policy support to actual production behavior.