Abstract: The cyclic utilization of the waste in livestock breeding is not only an important task of China to carry out the rural vitalization strategy in the new era but also the inevitable choice for the sustainable development of China’s livestock breeding industry. This paper tries to explore the farmers’ behavior and policy intervention paths in the cyclic utilization of waste in livestock breeding with the grounded theory. The results show that the three major categories, i.e., the sense of cyclic utilization, the cost and benefit of cyclic utilization and social reference criterion, are the major factors affecting farmers’ behavior in the cyclic utilization of livestock waste. However, the ways and paths of their impacts on the farmers’ behaviors are different. The sense of cyclic utilization is the internal cause and the inducing factor affecting the farmers’ behavior in the cyclic utilization of livestock waste; the cost and benefit of cyclic utilization is the internal situational factor affecting the farmers’ behavior; while the social reference criterion would affect farmers’ livestock waste recycling behavior by influencing the sense of cyclic utilization, as well as the cost and benefit of cyclic utilization. The two major categories, i.e., knowledge communication and institutional technology, are the policy intervention paths of livestock waste recycling, and these two intervention policies are mutual complementing and interacting. To affect the sense of cyclic utilization and the social reference through knowledge communications and to affect the cost and benefit of cyclic utilization through institutional technology are the major policy intervention paths for the livestock waste recycling.

Key words: the grounded theory; livestock breeding waste; farmers’ behavior; policy intervention