Research On The Influence Of Different Government Regulations On Farmland Protection Behavior Of Family Farm

Government regulation is an important measure to safeguard the construction of a strong agricultural country and achieve high-quality agricultural development.According to data from the Third National Land Survey and the 2019 National Communiqué on the Quality Rating of Arable Land issued by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development,the average quality rating of China’s arable land is 4.76,with only 31.24% of the land being of excellent quality.Under unreasonable exploitation and use,China’s arable land suffers from increased pollution from agricultural surface sources and degradation of farmland ecosystems,which has seriously hindered high-quality agricultural development.In this regard,the 20 th Party Congress report pointed out that we should "strengthen the foundation of food security on all fronts,fully implement the responsibility of the Party and the government for food security,firmly guard the red line of 1.8 billion mu of arable land,and gradually turn all permanent basic farmland into high-standard farmland",and the No.1document of the Central Government in 2023 even explicitly proposed to "strengthen the protection and use control of arable land".As the most promising and vital of the new agricultural business entities,the production behaviour of family farms has an important impact on the protection of arable land.Government regulations play an important role in promoting the protection of farmland on family farms.Different government regulations have different impacts on farmers’ farmland conservation behaviour.Effective government supervision and punishment measures can promote farmers’ farmland conservation behaviour,such as promoting the mechanised return of straw to the fields,guiding farmers to adopt conservation tillage techniques,and reducing farmers’ production costs through green production subsidies.However,the existing research on the evolution of farmland conservation policies is inadequate,with insufficient attention paid to family farms as a subject,and there is a lack of mechanistic analysis and empirical testing of government regulations affecting farmers’ farmland conservation behaviour,resulting in policy failure in government regulations.This study takes family farms as the research object.Based on a review of relevant domestic and international studies,the current situation of family farms and the evolution of farmland protection policies,government regulations are divided into three dimensions: binding regulations,guiding regulations and incentive regulations,and a multi-institutional logical analysis framework is adopted to analyse the mechanism of different government regulations on family farms’ farmland protection behaviour.Based on field survey data of family farms in five provinces of Zhejiang,Anhui,Shandong,Hunan and Sichuan,an econometric model was used to empirically test the magnitude of the impact of government regulations on family farms’ arable land conservation behaviour,to analyse the mediating role of the green transformation of family farms,and the heterogeneity of the impact of different types and sizes of family farms,with the following main findings:(1)An analysis of the evolutionary trend of arable land protection policies reveals that since the reform and opening up,China’s arable land protection policies have gone through five stages:disorderly management,early exploration,initial formation,deepening and perfecting,and modernization and development,etc.The arable land protection policy documents have become richer and richer,the policy tools have become more and more diversified,the policy measures have become more and more specific,the policies are more operable and the coverage is wider.(2)The study on the influence of government regulation on the conservation behaviour of family farms found that the proportion of family farms carrying out conservation of cropland was higher,and the proportion of conservation behaviour in cropland was,from highest to lowest,the application of organic fertiliser,carrying out pollution control of cropland,and carrying out conservation tillage such as no-till fallow.In terms of regional differences,the number of family farms carrying out arable land protection is,in descending order,Sichuan,Shandong,Zhejiang,Hunan and Anhui.However,there are still problems such as the lack of initiative of family farms in carrying out arable land conservation and the inadequacy of the social service system,which cannot meet the needs of family farms for arable land conservation.Introductory regulations have a significant positive impact on the conservation behaviour of family farms,while restraining and incentive regulations have a significant positive impact on the application of organic fertilisers and pollution control on family farms,but not on the implementation of conservation tillage such as no-till fallow.From the results of the heterogeneity analysis,it can be seen that there are significant differences in the effects of binding,guiding and incentive regulations on the conservation behaviour of different types and sizes of family farms.In terms of type differences,cultivation-type family farms are more likely to carry out farmland conservation measures than other types of family farms;in terms of scale differences,the impact of binding and guiding regulations on farmland conservation behaviour of large-scale family farms is more significant than that of medium-and low-scale family farms(3)An analysis of the mediating effect of green transition on family farms found that government regulation can influence family farms’ arable land conservation behaviour by affecting their perception of green transition and green certification.There is a significant mediating effect of green transformation on the conservation behaviour of family farms under the government’s binding,guiding and incentive regulations.Based on the theoretical analysis and empirical results,this paper puts forward the following policy recommendations: to reasonably use different combinations of government regulations to promote the protection of family farm arable land;to encourage and guide the green transformation of family farms and improve the awareness of green transformation of family farms;to take into account the heterogeneity of family farms in government regulation policies and optimise policy tools.