Farmers’ Approval And Performance Perception Of Farmland Conservation Compensation Policy

As one of the most important ecosystems in the world,farmland ecosystems not only bring considerable economic benefits and social stability effects to people,but also provide various ecosystem services such as climate regulation and water conservation.However,the ecosystem services provided by farmland have obvious externalities.In order to internalize the externality problems,reasonable compensation should be made to the actual implementers or property rights subjects of cultivated land protection.In the past ten years,my country has repeatedly emphasized economic compensation for farmland protection.Since 2008,Chengdu City in Sichuan Province and Dongguan City in Guangdong Province have taken the lead in piloting farmland protection and compensation policies.Since then,other provinces（cities）have successively launched pilot projects of compensation policies for farmland protection based on their own economic development levels.So far,the farmland protection compensation policy has been implemented for more than 12 years,so the analysis of its implementation performance has important practical significance for the improvement of the policy and the implementation of the pilot in the future.Existing research on farmland protection and compensation has obtained rich research results on the macro scale,but the research on the performance of farmland protection compensation policies based on the micro level is insufficient.Therefore,this study reveals the performance perception of the compensation policy for farmland protection from the scale of the micro-body of farmland protection,that is,farmers.This research aims to provide a theoretical basis and decision-making reference for clarifying the deficiencies and problems of the existing farmland protection compensation policies,and promoting the sound and optimization of future policies.Based on the theoretical analysis of the attributes and values of farmland resources,this study constructed a theoretical analysis framework of farmers’approval and their perceived performance of farmland protection policies,and selected Wuhan City in Hubei Province,Dongguan City in Guangdong Province,and Chengdu City in Sichuan Province as the research areas.Among them,Wuhan City in Hubei Province is a representative area for implementing general farmland protection policies（non-implementation of farmland protection compensation policies）,while Dongguan City in Guangdong Province and Chengdu City in Sichuan Province are representative areas that have implemented regional farmland protection compensation policies in addition to general farmland protection policies（implementation of farmland protection compensation policies）.By comparing the differences in the approval and performance perception of farmland protection policies by farmers in the two types of areas,the effectiveness of farmland protection compensation policies is revealed.Specifically,this research obtains data through surveys.From the perspective of farmers’perception,firstly,through descriptive statistics and fuzzy comprehensive evaluation methods,the farmers’farmland functional needs and their perceived responses to farmland protection policies are statistically analyzed and comprehensive levels measured.Secondly,by comparing,classifying and matching the scores of farmers in the two parts to judge the farmers’approval of farmland protection policies,and analyze the factors that affect their approval.Then,for farmers with different approval levels of farmland protection policies,evaluate their perceptions and differences in the implementation performance of farmland protection compensation policies,and based on Amartya Sen’s theory of feasible ability to construct a theoretical framework for farmers’perceptions of differences in the performance of farmland protection compensation policies,and use a multiple logistic regression model to explain the causes of differences in farmers’perceptions of policy performance.The study found that:（1）Farmers’demand for farmland functions in different regions and their perceived responses to farmland protection policies are different,which lead to differences in their approval of farmland protection policies.Specifically:（1）In terms of farmers’demand for farmland functions,the overall demand for farmland functions by farmers in Wuhan is the highest,followed by Dongguan,and Chengdu is the lowest;in the three regions,the farmers’demand for different functions of farmland from high to low is divided into economic function,social function and ecological function.（2）In terms of farmers’perception of the response to farmland protection policies,whether it is from the perspective of the overall function of farmland or the three dimensions of economy,society and ecology,the perceived policy responses of farmers in the three regions are all between―generally important‖and―more important‖.（3）In terms of farmers’approval of farmland protection policies,in terms of the economic function of farmland,farmers in the three regions generally show low approval of farmland protection policies,but high approval in terms of social and ecological functions;farmland protection policies generally show a high degree of approval by farmers,but different farmers have different degrees of approval,which can be divided into three types:"high approval","general approval"and"low approval".（2）Factors such as the number of rural households,the area of farmland,whether policies are implemented,and other factors affect the approval of farmland protection policies by farmers.From the perspective of farmers’overall approval of the policy,the approval is positively correlated with the number of households and the area of farmland in the family,that is,farmers with larger family populations and more farmland have a higher degree of approval of farmland protection policies;it has nothing to do with personal characteristics such as gender,age,education level,and social interaction.（3）There are differences in farmers’perceptions of the performance of farmland protection compensation policies in different regions and with different policy approval levels.From an overall point of view,the performance perception of farmland protection and compensation policies of farmers in Wuhan City is mainly distributed at two levels of"general"or"low"performance,while no farmers feel the"high"performance level.In the approval and performance matching type,most people belong to the"A_IP_II"in Wuhan City,that is,"high approval and general performance perception".The performance perceptions of farmers in Dongguan and Chengdu on the compensation policies for farmland protection are mainly distributed at the two levels of"general"and"high",while no farmers have felt the"low"performance level.Among the types of approval and performance matching,most farmers in Dongguan are"A_IP_II",that is,"high approval and general performance perception",while farmers in Chengdu are mostly"A_IP_I",that is"high approval and high performance perception".（4）Instrumental freedom and conversion factors together lead to differences in farmers’perceptions of the performance of farmland protection compensation policies.Regardless of the overall performance perception or the performance perception of the three dimensions of quantity,quality,and ecology,the two instrumental free variables of"trust in neighboring friends"and"trust in village committee"and the social transformation factor of"policy implementation status"all have a significant positive impact on farmers’perception of policy performance.（5）The compensation policy for farmland protection is effective.From the above analysis results,it can be seen that on the one hand,in terms of the relationship between farmers’demand for farmland functions and their perceived response to farmland protection policies,farmers’demand for farmland functions in Wuhan is in a state of"supply exceeds demand",that is,the general farmland protection policies implemented locally cannot meet the needs of farmers for multiple functions of farmland,while Dongguan and Chengdu are in a state of"supply exceeding demand".On the other hand,by studying the influencing factors of farmers’perception of differences in the performance of farmland protection compensation policies,it can be found that the regression coefficients of policy implementation in the four regression models are positive and between 1.8-2.6,this reflects that the implementation of farmland protection and compensation policies can significantly improve farmers’awareness of the performance of the policy implementation.Based on the above research results,this study believes that diversified farmland protection policies and compensation methods should be implemented.At the same time,farmers’actual needs should be paid attention to in farmland protection compensation policies,and farmers’response mechanisms should be established to increase farmers’approval of farmland protection policies and the perceived performance of farmland protection compensation policies.