Rural domestic sewage treatment is not only an important part of the renovation of rural human settlements, but also a major measure to revitalize those areas. In the absence of extensive participation by farmers, it is difficult to achieve desired results. From the theoretical analysis of the influence of social capital on farmers’ participation, and based on the survey data of farmers in Nanjing, Jiangsu Province, this study used a logistic model to analyze the influence of social capital and personal, family, and awareness characteristics of farmers on their participation levels. Social capital plays a significant role in promoting farmers’ participation, and the contribution of its core variables is in the following order: social norms > social trust > social networks. Among the control variables, the need for domestic sewage treatment, participation in environmental training, educational level, and participation in a village cadre significantly enhance farmers’ participation levels. Consequently, promotion of rural domestic sewage treatment should include improvement of farmers’ social trust, social norms, and social networks, to enhance social capital. Publicity and education should be reinforced, and environmental training should be carried out to improve farmers’ awareness and sense of responsibility, leading them to active participation.

Purpose: Low-carbon agricultural technology (LAT) extension is a key strategy for the agricultural sector to address climate change. Social capital, which consists of social networks, trust and norms, can play an active LAT extension role. This paper aims to analyze the mechanism of the role of social capital in the process of LAT extension. Design/methodology/approach: Questionnaire data from six counties in Jiangsu, China, were used to measure social capital and analyze its effect on LAT extension using logistic regression. Data from 27 interviews were used to analyze the LAT extension experiences and problems. Findings: LAT is mainly deployed by the government to farmers and distributed among them. In this process, the village officials who form parts of the government’s composition and the villagers play a dual role that facilitates a close link between them and the farmers and ensures LAT integration. However, social norms did not play a significant role in the process. Practical implications: Farmers’ acceptance of LAT is based solely on the trade-off between local networks’ benefits and trust in local villagers and village officials. LAT-related laws and technical measures, thus are essential to strengthen LAT practices’ authority and incorporate LAT-based agricultural production as the norm of production behavior. Originality/value: This paper provides an insight into the process and essence of farmers’ acceptance of LAT, which provides theoretical lessons for the LAT extension in China and indeed other developing countries.

Rural ecological revitalization (RER) is one of the five goals of China’s rural revitalization strategy. However, there is a lack of an effective index system to evaluate RER levels, which hinders the implementation of this national policy and reduces the effectiveness and efficiency of public resource input. Using the driver-pressure-state-impact-response (DPSIR) framework, this study developed an evaluation framework consisting of 5 subsystems, 12 secondary indicators, and 33 tertiary indicators. Using the entropy-weighted TOPSIS method, we analyzed a set of 30 provinces’ data and empirically determined the weights of each indicator. We found that the response subsystem had the largest weight (0.338), followed by the state (0.271), impact (0.148), pressure (0.130), and driver (0.113). We then evaluated the RER level in each province and found that five provinces had high RER levels, 16 provinces had moderate RER levels, and nine provinces had low RER levels. Using Moran’s I, we examined spatial autocorrelation of provincial RER levels at global and local dimensions. We found significant positive global autocorrelations across all subsystems, indicating that geological aggregation exists in all RER subsystems. The local autocorrelation results showed that low–low and high–high patterns were the dominant local autocorrelation patterns. According to the findings, we discussed the possible implications of this RER evaluation index system and provided policy recommendations for strengthening RER in different regions across the country.

The effective participation of peasants can raise the quality of high-standard farmland construction (HSFC) in China. How to avoid inefficient participation is an urgent issue that needs to be solved in the field of HSFC. However, the factors that influence peasants’ effective participation in the HSFC remains to be further studied. This study used factor analysis and a comprehensive evaluation method to calculate social networks and the level of peasants’ effective participation in HSFC based on a survey dataset of 347 peasants in Yancheng City, China. The influence of information support, incentive support, constraint support, network interaction, network trust, and network norms on the level of peasants’ effective participation in HSFC was analyzed using an ordered logistic model. The results of the study indicate that: (1) The overall level of peasants’ effective participation in the HSFC is at a “medium” level, and the level of peasants’ effective participation needs to be further raised. (2) Government support considerably influences peasants’ effective participation in HSFC. Information support, incentive support, and constraint support significantly impact peasants’ effective participation in HSFC. (3) Social networks possess a significant positive impact on the level of peasants’ effective participation in HSFC, with the core variables contributing to peasants’ effective participation in the order of network interaction, network trust, and network norms. (4) Peasants’ cognition significantly impacts peasants’ effective participation in HSFC. Therefore, to enhance the level of peasants’ effective participation in HSFC, it is suggested to further improve government information support, incentive support, and constraint support; strengthen network interaction, enhance network trust, improve network norms, and effectively play the role of social networks; and to strengthen peasants’ education and training.

Studying the policy effectiveness and impact process of the high-standard farmland construction (HSFC) on the green agricultural development (GAD) provides reference for sustainable development of agriculture. Based on the quasi experimental conditions for the sub regional promotion of China’ s HSFC policy and making use of the balanced panel data from 2004 to 2022 in China, this article diagnoses the level and evolution characteristics of GAD in China, empirically tests the effects of the China’s HSFC policy on the GAD level by the continuous difference-in-differences (DID) model, and then further analyzes the mediating roles of horizontal agricultural production division and land management scale efficiency. The research results indicate that (1) the GAD level of China continues to improve form 2004 to 2022; (2) the HSFC policy has been positively influencing the GAD level, and has gone through a significance level test of 0.01; (3) further study reveals that the HSFC policy promotes the GAD level primarily through the agricultural green technology progress (AGTP) and the agricultural green efficiency change (AGEC), with the AGTP being the main contributor; and (4) the HSFC policy positively influences the GAD level by enhancing horizontal agricultural production division and land management scale efficiency. To improve the level of GAD, it is essential to continuously optimize policy for the HSFC, promote the AGTP and the improvement of the AGEC, and effectively improve the horizontal agricultural production division level and land management scale efficiency.