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Clarifying public willingness to pay (WTP) for farmland non‐point source pollution (FNSP) governance helps to establish an ecological compensation mechanism with public participation. This will reduce China's agricultural pollution and its environmental and food safety consequences while promoting sustainable development. Nevertheless, research has yet to reveal the public WTP within China's FNSP governance policy framework. To this end, a "2030‐oriented FNSP governance program" choice experiment with specific FNSP governance measures (fertilizer reduction, pesticide reduction, straw resource utilization, and mulch film recycling) was conducted in Gansu Province to reveal the public WTP for FNSP governance and its key influencing factors. Results from mixed logit models show that urban residents' marginal WTP (MWTP) for improving the FNSP status quo and different measures for fertilizer reduction, pesticide reduction, straw resource utilization, and mulch film recycling is ¥151.62, ¥1.33, ¥7.3, ¥4.85, and ¥3.16 annually, respectively, indicating the highest preference for reducing pesticides because of food safety problems. Meanwhile, the average individual WTP for optimal FNSP governance schemes is ¥513.02 annually, accounting for only 3.86‰ of annual household income; the regional aggregate social welfare of optimal FNSP governance is as high as ¥2038.23 million, accounting for 2.81% of GDP in 2020. This means that FNSP governance can bring substantial social welfare with a low household economic burden. In addition, the perception that food safety has improved in the past 5 years or an awareness of food safety incidents can enhance the willingness of urban residents to change the status quo of FNSP: the more serious the respondents perceive food safety problems to be, the stronger the above effects, indicating the critical impact of food safety factors on the public's WTP for FNSP governance. The study's findings highlight the potential to find socially acceptable ways to promote FNSP governance as well as provide insight into the relevant policymaking process from the standpoint of public participation and food safety. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The impacts of widespread carbon emission trends possessed tremendous pressure for global food security, sustainable development, and ecosystems. Several temporal and spatial patterns of green technology have been adopted to reduce carbon emissions in different regions of China. In China, agriculture industries may have colossal importance for reducing carbon emissions. On the basis of the data from 1998 to 2018, the study uses the heterogeneous stochastic frontier model to quantify the carbon emission reduction potential of agricultural green technology progress in eastern, central, and western regions of China by using the heterogeneous stochastic frontier model. We also analyze the coefficient of variation and its spatial and temporal evolution pattern of carbon intensity decline potential index and explore the potential factors related to the agriculture green technology progress of China. The finding of the study revealed that the carbon emission rate in the agriculture industry of China is very high, whereas adopting green technology is slower because of economic and policy-related factors—the carbon emission of green technological progress. In terms of spatial variations, the changes in various regions were consistent with the overall fluctuating rate compared with the state of another country, but an increasing trend has been traced within the “east-central-west” regions. The overall regional differences are gradually trending, but differences between regions mainly cause them. The increase in the structure of the agricultural agriculture industry, the level of labor, and the increase in administrative environmental regulations will weaken the obstacles to the carbon emission reduction potential of green technological progress. The increase in urbanization, the level of the agricultural economy, and economic and environmental regulations will increase the carbon emission reduction potential of green technological progress. It is necessary to actively promote exchanges and cooperation in green agricultural technology and advanced management concepts, accelerate the optimization and upgrading of the industrial structure, and achieve the goal of peaking carbon emissions through regional coordinated development. Regionally, the overall external environment and the level of green technology progress in the western region need to be improved in all respects. The central and eastern regions need to focus on combining different policy tools to transform them from hindrance to promotion.

Cadmium (Cd) pollution is a huge threat to ecosystem health. In the manuscript, pot experiments were conducted to investigate the changes in plant biomass and antioxidant indicators under different cadmium pollution levels (0, 25, 50, and 100 mg/kg) of inoculation of plant growth-promoting bacteria ZG7 on sugar beet. The results showed that the accumulation of excess Cd in sugar beet exhibited different symptoms, including reduced biomass (p < 0.05). Compared with the group treated with uninoculated strain ZG7, inoculation of strain ZG7 significantly reduced the toxicity of sugar beet to Cd and enhanced its antioxidant capacity, with no significant differences in root biomass and increases in leaf biomass of 15.71, 5.84, and 74.12 under different Cd concentration treatments (25, 50, and 100 mg/kg), respectively. The root enrichment of Cd was reduced by 49.13, 47.26, and 21.50%, respectively (p < 0.05). The leaf fraction was reduced by 59.35, 29.86, and 30.99%, respectively (p < 0.05). In addition, the enzymatic activities of sucrase, urease, catalase, and neutral phosphatase were significantly enhanced in the soil (p < 0.05). This study helps us to further investigate the mechanism of cadmium toxicity reduction by inoculated microorganisms and provides a theoretical reference for growing plants in cadmium-contaminated agricultural fields. The combination of microorganisms and phytoremediation is becoming a popular research topic. The selection of suitable plant growth promoting bacteria can not only promote the growth and development of plants and enhance their cadmium resistance, but also improve the soil quality. And the results of this study will be important for growing edible plants and improving soils in cadmium-contaminated areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Achieving coordination between grassland ecological conservation and livestock production is a global concern. Based on the survey data for 818 herders in China, we empirically analyzed grassland rental's (GR) impact on herders' technical efficiency (TE) and overgrazing under a unified framework. Results indicate that GR offers concurrent benefits of improving TE and reducing overgrazing; it helps to achieve a win-win situation between livestock production and grassland conservation. However, GR does little to promote TE by reducing overgrazing. Further analysis reveals that GR's promotion effect on TE and the inhibition effect on overgrazing are heterogeneous among different income groups and grassland types. GR plays a stronger role in improving TE and reducing overgrazing by low-income herders, which is conducive in narrowing the animal husbandry development gap between rich and poor. The key policy implication is that GR should be encouraged under the condition of strengthening supervision. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]