Sustainable farmland construction is a priority development strategy to achieve the integrated  goals of "efficient output, resource conservation, and environmental friendliness" in agricultural systems. Introducing farmers to participate in optimizing farmland construction systems can improve efficiency and alleviate the financial pressure on central government construction funds.

Recently, the Team of Agricultural Resources Utilization and Regional Planning conducted an experiment survey of farmers in the project area to analyze their preferences for participating in sustainable farmland construction and assess their willingness to pay for different farmland construction schemes. The research findings indicate that farmers prefer the construction of mechanized production roads (MPR), Level Farmland and Construct Contiguous Farmland (LF and CF), Integrated Irrigation and Fertilizer Facilities (IIFF), and moderately improved ecological protection facilities. Based on the heterogeneity of farmer preferences, they can be classified as benefit-driven or ecology-driven.

Furthermore, factors such as age, education level, risk propensity, land transfer, and land quality can influence the classification of farmer preferences. Farmers' willingness to pay for MPR, LF and CF, ecological ditches, IIFF, and moderately improved ecological facilities has reached 50-80% of the construction cost, essentially bridging the financial gap under sustainable farmland standards. Given this scenario, the design of sustainable farmland schemes should consider farmers' needs and regional development requirements. It is suggested to allocate construction costs based on farmers' willingness to pay for various facilities, establish different investment ratios, and form a coherent government-farmer cooperation mode.

This study introduces policy tools to establish a farmers' participation mechanism in farmland construction, offering valuable insights into institutional reforms in land consolidation projects across other developing countries.  

The above research findings, titled "Farmers' preferences for sustainable farmland construction — Insights from a discrete choice experiment in China," were published in the JCR Tier 1 journal "Sustainable Production and Consumption" (IF=12.1 for 2022-2023). Doctoral candidate Yanshu Yin is the first author, and researcher Changbin Yin is the corresponding author. This research was jointly funded by the National Social Science Fund Major Project (18ZDA048), the Asian Development Bank Technical Assistance Project (TA-6626): "Green Farmland Construction and High-Quality Agricultural Development in the Yellow River Basin," the Science and Technology Innovation Project of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, and other projects.

Article link: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352550924001520