Research on the improvement of farmers’ literacy of standardized disease control based on rooted theory and grey correlation analysis

In order to further improve farmers’ literacy of standardized disease control, ensure the orderly development of disease prevention and control, based on the interview data of 25 beef cattle farmers in Zhongning County, Haiyuan County, Yuanzhou District and Xiji County of Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, this study applied the rooted theory to conduct open coding, spindle coding and selective coding of the interview data of 21 beef cattle farmers, and conducted theoretical saturation test on the interview data of the remaining four beef cattle farmers. The logical model for the improvement of farmers’ literacy of standardized disease control was constructed, and the key factors for the improvement of farmers’ literacy of standardized disease control were analyzed by grey correlation. The results showed that 31 original concepts, 17 initial categories and five main categories were extracted through open coding, principal axis coding and selective coding. The theoretical saturation test results of the interview data of four farmers showed that theoretical saturation had been reached. The five main categories, namely, farmers’ perceptions of epidemic prevention, health of livestock and poultry, role of the surrounding environment, government governance and market governance, were the main factors to improve farmers’ literacy of standardized disease control, of which farmers’ perceptions of epidemic prevention and health of livestock and poultry were the intrinsic key factors, and the role of the surrounding environment, government governance and market governance were the extrinsic key factors. Through the grey correlation analysis of five main categories, the key factors for the improvement of farmers’ literacy of standardized disease control were ranked as government governance ＞ role of surrounding environment ＞ farmers’ perceptions of epidemic prevention ＞ market governance ＞ health of livestock and poutry. Based on this, the author suggested that paying attention to the health of livestock and poultry, deeping farmers’ perceptions of epidemic prevention, strengthening epidemic prevention and control measures, improving the surrounding environment of farmers, strengthen epidemic prevention and control measures, adjust the knowledge structure of farmers were effective ways to improve farmers’ literacy of standardized disease control.