Influencing factors of farmers’ willingness to protect cropland quality based on the TPB-VBN integration theory: evidence from Henan Province, China

Introduction The degradation of cropland quality poses a threat to global food security and sustainable agricultural development. As the direct practitioners of cropland protection, farmers’ willingness to protect cropland quality (WPQ) has a significant impact on this process. Methods Based on an integrated theoretical framework combining the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) and the Value-Belief-Norm (VBN) theory, this study utilizes 893 questionnaire responses from farmers in Henan Province. Employing a combination of Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) and the Decision-Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory (DEMATEL), it systematically examines the core factors influencing Farmers’ WPQ. Results The research results show that the WPQ of farmers with scarce cropland is directly driven mainly by personal norms, and subjective norms exert a significant negative impact on personal norms; the WPQ of farmers with abundant cropland is dominated more by consequential consciousness, and ecological values have a significant negative impact on personal norms. Except that behavioral attitude exerts a significant negative impact on the WPQ of both types of farmers, all other research variables play a positive promoting role. The systematic DEMATEL analysis indicates that consequential consciousness occupies a core hub position in the influencing factor system, ecological values are the root-level driving factor for the formation of the willingness to protect cropland quality, and personal norms are the key outcome-level factor. Discussion Based on these findings, this study puts forward policy recommendations combining differentiation and commonality from the aspects of strengthening the moral identity and consequence cognition of different types of farmers, eliminating the negative transmission effects of differentiated variables, and lowering the implementation threshold of cropland protection, so as to provide empirical references and practical paths for enhancing farmers’ WPQ and improving the cropland protection policy system.