Social networks, adoption constraints and forage farmers’ risk management tool portfolios: evidence from a transaction cost perspective

Research on agricultural risk management has focused mainly on individual tools, with less attention to how farmers assemble portfolios of tools. From a transaction cost perspective, this study uses survey data from 479 forage-growing households in 10 Chinese provinces collected in 2023–2024 to examine the relationships of traditional social networks and modern agribusiness networks with risk management tool portfolio breadth. Both networks are significantly and positively associated with portfolio breadth, but the sources of these associations differ. For traditional social networks, the association with portfolio breadth mainly reflects institutional embeddedness, whereas the financing association mainly reflects relatives’ and friends’ organizational participation. The portfolio-breadth association of modern agribusiness networks is concentrated in agricultural training, and these networks are also associated with information access. Further analysis shows that the positive association between modern agribusiness networks and the number of information channels extends across farm-size and income groups, whereas their portfolio-breadth association is concentrated in small-scale and low-income households. The positive financing association of traditional social networks is concentrated in large-scale and high-income households. Policy should combine broadly accessible information services with targeted guidance, improve financing connections through verifiable operating information and offer a choice of service combinations tailored to specific adoption constraints.