Off-Farm Income Shares and Farmers’ Adoption of Arable Land Protection Practices: Evidence from the Jianghan Plain, China

Using a Poisson regression model with a quadratic term and data from a 2022 survey of rice farmers across 10 counties in China’s Jianghan Plain, this study examines how the off-farm income shares are associated with the interplay between survival and sustainability imperatives in farmers’ adoption of arable land protection (ALP) practices. The results reveal an inverted U-shaped relationship between the off-farm income shares and ALP adoption. However, the off-farm income shares are negatively associated with ALP adoption overall. The association is consistent with several channels: disruption of farming time, increased distance from cropland, reduction in operational scale, and weakened awareness of ALP. Furthermore, significant differences in ALP adoption are observed among full-time farmers, part-time I farmers, and part-time II farmers, with the latter exhibiting the lowest level of ALP adoption. These findings provide empirical evidence on how off-farm income shares correlate with land management decisions and offer implications for tailored agricultural policy interventions.