Effect of Non-agricultural Employment on Farmer’ Willingness to Ecological Compensation

Based on the questionnaire survey data of 263 farmer households in 13 villages in Qianjiangyuan National Park of Kaihua county, Zhejiang province in 2019, studies were made on effect of nonagricultural employment on farmers’ willingness to ecological compensation. The result showed that farmer’ willingness to ecological compensation was different, they preferred cash compensation to material compensation. Nonagricultural employment had significant impact on farmers’ willingness to ecological compensation. The stability of nonagricultural employment and the increase of employment income could increase farmers’ willingness to choose cash compensation and lower their expectation, and the nonagricultural employment time of household would increase their expectation for ecological compensation. Recommendations were put forwarded like more nonagricultural employment opportunities to reduce farmers’ expectation on the ecological compensation, different financial supports from governments to improve ecological compensation standards, and market mechanism for local ecological products .