Study on Farmers’ Willingness to Maintain the Sloping Land Conversion Program in Ethnic Minority Areas under the Background of Subsidy Expiration

Abstract

The sloping land conversion program (SLCP) is one of the most important payment for ecosystem services (PESs) in the world, as direct stakeholders and the final implementers of the SLCP, farmers’ willingness to maintain the achievements is the basis for the consolidation and sustainable operation of the SLCP. Based on a survey of 975 farmers in Hunan Province, Gansu Province, and the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, this study used the elastic net model to accurately select the influencing factors of farmers’ willingness to maintain the SLCP and the logit model to measure these factors. Finally, combined with the interpretative structural model (ISM), we further analyzed the hierarchical structure of each significant influencing factor. The main results are as follows. Firstly, off-farm employment, whether the head of the household is a village cadre, labor number, land area, income level, subjective norms from the organization, altruistic rationality, active ability, and policy perception had significant and positive impacts on farmers’ willingness to maintain the SLCP. In contrast, whether the head of the household is an ethnic minority and the expiration of the SLCP subsidy had significant and negative impacts on farmers’ willingness to maintain the SLCP. Secondly, the factors affecting farmers’ willingness to maintain the SLCP are at different levels, being both independent and interrelated. Among them, the deep-rooted factors are whether the head of the household is an ethnic minority, the expiration of the SLCP subsidy, the labor number, and whether the head of the household is a village cadre. Based on the above results, government departments should broaden the income channels of farmers in ethnic minority areas, strengthen the publicity to maintain the SLCP in ethnic minority areas, and improve the SLCP’s follow-up policy to enhance the farmers’ willingness to maintain the SLCP and ensure the program’s sustainability.