Exploring the differences between coastal farmers' subjective and objective risk preferences in China using an agent-based model.

Around the world, farming decision-making has been receiving increasing attention from the academic circles, while there is currently an important research gap regarding coastal farmers' farming decision-making. Natural disasters occur frequently in coastal zones. Farmers, as a rational agent, inevitably have heterogeneous risk preferences. However, few studies have distinguished between subjective and objective risk preferences, and have analyzed the influence of these differences on the final results. In this paper, the Shankou Town in the Hepu County, Beihai City, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, China was selected as a typical coastal zone research area. The aim of this study was to analyze subjective and objective risk preferences, build a multi-agent model, and simulate farmers' real farming decision-making. By providing targeted policy recommendations, we believe that our research can contribute to reducing land abandonment. In fact, a wrong perception of the risk preferences may lead to differences in the prediction of future land abandonment. In many cases, farmers do not understand the risk-taking behavior. Therefore, through this method, the severity of land abandonment can be predicted in advance. so that the government can take the necessary measures to prevent and control it, and raise the willingness of farmers for land reconversion. • Risk preference has a driving effect on farmers' farming decisions. • Subjectively, the land abandonment rate will increase by 12.01% in 50 years' time. • Objectively, the land abandonment rate will increase by 16.84%. • It is innovative to distinguish between subjective and objective risk preferences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]