Indigenous people's perceptions of benefits and costs of China's second phase of the grain for green program and the influencing factors

We argue that, instead of conventional monetary measures of net economic benefits, perceptions of program participants about net economic, social, environmental, and overall benefits are more important for the sustainability of the programs like the Second Phase of China's Grain for Green Program. A model of participants' perceptions of net social, economic, environmental, and overall benefits is proposed and used to examine the influencing factors of the perceptions. The model is estimated using household data from Yi (Indigenous) people of China and multivariate probit regression. Interestingly, results reveal that for both poor and non-poor participants: (i) perceived income inequality reduces the respective possibilities of perceiving positive net economic and net social benefits about the program; (ii) perceived water pollution in nearby rivers reduces the respective possibilities of perceiving positive net social and net environmental benefits; (iii) perceived increase of time for non-farm work increases the possibility of perceiving positive net economic benefit; and (iv) perceived increase of time for family care and housework increases the possibility of perceiving positive net social benefit. We suggest policy interventions to improve the influence of factors that have positive impacts on participants' perceptions and reduce the influences of factors having negative impacts.

Automated summary

This paper argues that the sustainability of programs like China's Grain for Green Program can be better measured by participants' perceptions of net economic, social, environmental, and overall benefits rather than conventional monetary measures. A model is proposed to examine the influencing factors of participants' perceptions, and the results reveal several interesting findings regarding the impact of factors such as income inequality, water pollution, non-farm work time, and family care and housework time on participants' perceptions. Policy interventions are suggested to improve positive factors and reduce negative factors.