The Impact of Farmers’ Perception on Their Cultivated Land Quality Protection Behavior: A Case Study of Ningbo, China

Abstract

Farmers’ protection behavior largely depends on their perceived value of cultivated land quality protection. However, existing research shows that the impact path of these perceived factors on farmers’ cultivated land protection behavior is not clear. Based on the survey data of 288 farmers in Ningbo City, this study empirically analyzed the impact of farmers’ perception on their cultivated land quality protection behavior through structural equation modeling (SEM). The results showed that farmers’ cultivated land quality protection behavior largely depended on perceived value, and they followed the logic paradigm of “perceived tradeoff→perceived value→behavioral intention→behavioral response”. Among them, farmers’ perceived value comes from farmers’ comprehensive tradeoff of benefits and risks in the process of cultivated land quality protection. In other words, improving farmers’ perceived benefits and reducing perceived risks is conducive to improving farmers’ perceived value of cultivated land quality protection. The above findings are helpful to improve farmers’ behavior of farmland land quality protection and provide new ideas and empirical basis for the design and improvement of cultivated land quality protection policies.