Multi-subject collaboration in agricultural green production: a tripartite evolutionary game of central government, local governments, and farmers

Relying solely on regulatory or subsidy strategies complicates the effective and sustainable coordination of agricultural green production. However, this issue may be resolved by leveraging the role of local governments in market support. This study constructs a dynamic evolutionary game model for agricultural green production based on substituting organic fertilizer for chemical fertilizer (hereafter, SOC) and draws on new institutional economics and game theories. The model includes the central government, local government, and farmers, incorporates local government support for organic farming product markets into behavioral strategies, and excludes traditional incentive strategies. Numerical simulation experiments using MATLAB explored effective strategies, including local government subsidies to farmers, local government support of organic agricultural product markets, hierarchical supervision by the central government, local government, and farmers, and supervision intensity for evolutionary equilibrium strategies. The results showed that local governments play a key role in linking the central government and farmers and suggests that the ideal equilibrium can be achieved by supporting the market or subsidizing farmers. Changes in local government supervision intensity had little effect on model equilibrium, whereas increased central government supervision intensity towards local governments significantly affected active implementation. Based on these observations, policy insights are proposed for local governments to establish strategies to promote agricultural green production based on market support and subsidies and for the central government to reward local government, support organic markets, and appropriately strengthen the local government supervisory intensity.