Abstract:

The object of the study is to investigate the agricultural social ecological responses under the implementation of the Erhai Lake protection policy, provide suggestions for the Erhai Lake protection and management, and maintain the sustainable development of local agriculture. Questionnaire, five-level Likert-scale and principal component analysis were used to quantitatively analyze the livelihood status, policy cognition, policy response and the relationship among them in the agricultural society under the influence of the protection and management policy of the Erhai Lake. The results show that the implementation of the Erhai Lake protection and management policy has certain impacts on the livelihood of farmers, but the farmers respond highly to the policy, and most of them have changed their original fertilization choices and planting patterns. However, due to the influencing factors such as education level and age, farmers’ cognition of the policy is still low, while that does not hinder their compliance with the policy. Therefore, in the policy implementation process of the Erhai Lake protection, more attentions should be focused on guiding farmers to correctly implement the policy contents and giving a full play to farmers’ initiatives, to gain more sound agricultural social foundation for the policy implementation.

Key words: protection policy of the Erhai Lake, agricultural social ecology, sustainable agriculture, policy cognition, farmers’ response