Study On Behaviors Of Farmer Households Participating In The Conversion Of Cropland To Forestland Program

The Conversion of Cropland to Forestland Program (CCFP) is by far the most widely participated in the ecological construction in China with numerous farmer households. According to the preliminary statistics by the State Forestry Administration (SFA), from 1999 to 2006, CCFP has been involved in more than 30 million farmer households and 100 million farmers. The dissertation focuses on the behaviors of the households from a microscopic perspective. The purpose of the paper is to reveal the mechanism of the households' participation in the program so as to encourage farmers and farmer households, better guide and regulate their behaviors, and hence further enhance and upgrade their in-depth participation with the hope of ensuring the effectiveness and sustainability of their participation. This is exactly where the essence of the sustainable and scientific implementation of CCFP lies, constructing a harmonious forestry and safeguarding foresters' benefits.The dissertation has 10 chapters. Chapter one offers a general picture of the research, including an introduction, an overview of the background of the study, the purpose, meaning and content of the paper, and the methodology used in the research. Chapter Two covers the areas of the study concerning the core concepts and definitions, summarizes the results of the previous researches, and clarifies some of the basic assumptions to be used in the study, which lays a solid foundation for the paper. Chapter Three outlines the progress of CCFP to analyze the mechanism for the implementation of the program. Chapter Four describes the program and the farmer household survey sample profile to lay the foundation for an in-depth study. Chapter Five, on the basis of farmers sample data, analyzes their attitudes and behavior characteristics. Chapter Six analyzes the farmers' participation in decision-making, the behavior choice and behavior incentive mechanism in CCFP. Chapter Seven tries to frame a system of decision-making factors involved in the farmer households, and uses an econometric model to reveal their decision-making mechanism. Chapter Eight further examines the mechanism options for the households, introducing the classical game theory and the evolutionary game theory, on the basis of the analysis of stakeholders in the program. Chapter Nine provides some incentive mechanisms for farmer households to participate in the program. And Chapter Ten is a summary of the research findings of the paper, which puts forward some policy recommendations and makes clear the innovative points, troublesome problems, and future prospects of the study.As for the research methodology, the study uses for reference the mainstream approach to and the edge in farmer household behavior research. On the one hand, it adopts more standardized approaches introduced in theoretical economics and finance such as the cost, yield, and indifference curves; on the other hand, it uses the Logistic model to diagnose the factors affecting the households' decision-making behavior and willingness to participate. In addition, the research extensively uses the block diagram format to show farmer households' behavior mechanism more clearly.The major results of the study are (1) having conducted an fairly comprehensive survey on the attitudes and behaviors of the farmer households participating in the CCFP program, and statistically analyzed the survey data; (2) having systematically revealed for the first time the farmer households behavior mechanism for participating in the program; (3) having pioneered in constructing a theoretical framework and empirical model of the factors affecting the behaviors of the farmer households participating in the program; (4) having formally analyzed the stakeholders and their behaviors concerning CCFP; (5) having creatively adopted dynamic game theory and evolutionary game theory in analyzing behaviors of these farmer households; (6) having for the first time and fairly systematically proposed an innovative system of incentive mechanism for optimizing the farmer households participating in the program. All this indicates that the research has developed a new approach in the similar studies in China.The ultimate conclusion of the research is that the behavior of the farmer households participating in the CCFP program is such a one, which is arranged under the framework of principal-agent institutions, restrained by the program indicators, risks and costs, driven by beneficiary mechanism, functioned by the government's incentives, and affected by many other factors. After trading off cost-benefit and risk-return among the multiple game relations, farmer households decide to revert the marginal farmland to forest and carefully manage it, finally realize the return on the CCFP plots they contracted to be responsible for, and at the same time fulfill the individual supply of the ecological public goods delegated by the state. Their behavior is actually an aggregation of such a series of processes.The policy suggestions of the research are strengthening the construction of the mechanism for participating in community forestry; bettering and innovating compensation mechanisms; improving the CCFP supervisory system; formulating and promulgating the specific follow-up policies to reduce the risk aversion cost of the farmer households; enhancing the development of related industries and the construction of service systems in the CCFP areas; and optimizing the operation system and related support mechanisms. These suggestions are of great significance in promoting the sustainable development of the CCFP program in China.