Abstract: The key to control agricultural non-point source pollution is to effectively encourage farmers to reduce or not apply pesticides and fertilizers from the source. The compensation standards and influencing factors of agricultural non-point source pollution control are of great significance for the sustainable implementation of ecological compensation policy. Based on the survey data of farmers in the Dongting Lake Basin, we constructed a utility function based on utility theory and compensation principle to measure ecological compensation amount when farmers participate in agricultural non-point source pollution control to maximize their individual utility, and analyzed the influencing factors of farmers’ willingness to accept compensation using binary Logistic regression model. The results showed that: (1) About 77.3% of farmers in the survey area were willing to participate in agricultural nonpoint source pollution control and to protect agricultural ecological environment under the condition of giving certain ecological compensation. (2) When the application of chemical fertilizers and pesticides was reduced by 50%, the nonparame tric estimation result of ecological compensation standard of nonparametric agricultural non-point source pollution control without considering the objective factors was 2094.41 yuan·hm^-2, while that of the parameter estimation model was 1640.21 yuan·hm^-2, which can be used as the upper and lower limits of ecological compensation standards for agricultural non-point source pollution control in the Dongting Lake Basin. (3) Results of regression analysis showed that the farmers’ cognition level of policy is the direct key factor determining the acceptance of farmers to accept the ecological compensation for agricultural non-point source pollution control. The willingness of farmers to reduce pesticide and chemical fertilizer is the fundamental motivation for them to participate in agricultural non-point source pollution control. From the perspective of farmers’ willingness, related departments should improve the current compensation standards for agricultural non-point source pollution control, and explore ways to enhance farmers’ well-being.

Key words: agricultural non-point source pollution, ecological compensation standard, willingness to accept compensation, farmer, utility theory.