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Abstract:Researchers aspire to strike a balance between the production and consumption of ecosystem services (ES) in agriculture for long-term farm sustainability. One approach is to provide payments for ecosystem services (PES) through government programs. Therefore, it is necessary to evaluate ecosystem services and use the evaluated information to determine what policy designs could effectively induce more services in agricultural landscapes. This research uses a theoretical and analytical framework. In this framework, farmers' perceptions of the obtained ES, importance of ES, design rules of PES programs and management practices of PES programs are identified in Mengyin County by using surveys. The results show: (1) farmers could possibly recognize the limitations of the obtained ES and reduce their demand appropriately; (2) regulating services (e.g., pollination and biological pest control) provision is central to transforming trade-offs into synergies among ecosystem services; (3) farmers should not only attach great importance to the maintenance of soil fertility and health but also to the maintenance of semi-natural habitat, and the adoption of such an attitude could positively affect their behavior to maximize synergies among ES; and (4) farmers are program implementers; if they have a better understanding of the perceptions of ES and PES programs, the theoretical and analytical framework could help farmers, policy-makers and relevant institutions design effective schemes.

Agroecosystems are complex socio-ecological systems that are managed by farmers to achieve desired outcomes, including economic income and environmental benefits contributed by ecosystem services (ES). Therefore, understanding farmers’ attitudes for ES will provide references for targeted agricultural environment management, which is critical to achieving the sustainable development of agriculture. The aim of this study is to identify the attitudes of farmers regarding ES, and to test whether and how annual household income and social demographic characteristics affect farmers’ attitudes toward ES. Using face-to-face interviews to collect data and the hypothesis of environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) to provide an analytical framework, the results reveal that, in general, the perceptions of farmers’ attitudes on ES are highly complex, caused by characteristics of the farmers. Furthermore, the inflection points of the U-shaped curves, where priorities change from increasing income to paying more attention to waste assimilation and biological pest control, are identified at 17,091 and 25,071RMB, respectively. Initiatives that aim to achieve sustainable agricultural development by strengthening ES provisions should be sensitive to farmers’perceptions. Therefore, it is necessary to strengthen farmers’ educational attainment, concentrate fragmented cultivation area and create reasonable incentives for preserving and restoring of ES and increasing farmers’ income together, which then can enhance the positive outcomes from income growth.