Farmers’ Willingness to Engage in Ecological Compensation for Crop Rotation in China’s Black Soil Regions

Assessments of farmer satisfaction can be a crucial tool for effectively implementing an appropriate ecological compensation policy. This study evaluates the effectiveness of an ecological compensation policy for crop rotation in China’s black soil regions from the perspective of farmer satisfaction. Specifically, utilizing an improved entropy TOPSIS, logistic regression, and the obstacle degree model, this empirical study analyzes the performance of the ecological compensation policy for crop rotation in black soil regions and identifies barriers in Heilongjiang Province. The findings indicate that gender significantly and positively affects outcomes at the 10% level, while age has a notable influence at the 5% level. Additionally, the family labor force and the quality of cultivated land, both significant at the 5% level with negative coefficients, suggest a diminished likelihood of farmers participating in these ecological compensation projects. The family’s source of income, significantly influential at the 1% level, also indicates a lower propensity among farmers to engage. Performance analysis reveals that the values for variables of satisfaction with the project’s publicity (A1), satisfaction with the protection of farmers’ rights and interest (A3), overall satisfaction with the effectiveness of the project (B1), satisfaction with ecological compensation methods (B3), and satisfaction with household income after the implementation of the project (C1) are above the average. In contrast, values for variables of satisfaction with the supervision and management (A2), satisfaction with the payment of ecological compensation funds (A4), satisfaction level with black soil rotation ecological compensation standards (B2), satisfaction with the welfare level of family life after the implementation of the project (C2), and satisfaction with farmers’ proactive participation in the project (D1) fall below the average of 3.03. Therefore, this study provides a comprehensive framework for assessing the effectiveness of the ecological compensation policy for crop rotation in China’s black soil regions and offers recommendations for enhancing its performance.