Agricultural land accounts for 37% of the world’s terrestrial area, and the multiple functions of agroecosystems—providing food, soil and water retention, and various cultural services—are of great importance for sustainable land management. To ensure that multifunctionality, payment for ecosystem services (PES) schemes have been developed for heterogeneous agroecosystems. However, the effects of the schemes have not been fully measured because, in most cases, they have been implemented as action-oriented programs rather than outcome-based payments. This study examines the effect of a community-based PES (CB-PES) program on the prevention of farmland abandonment to assess the agricultural outcomes of PES implementation in hilly and mountainous areas in Japan. We interviewed farmers in enrolled communities, mapped enrolled plots, and analyzed agricultural census data on the socioeconomic characteristics and farmland management conditions of 12,261 farmers in 960 agricultural communities in a typical hilly and mountainous area of Noto Peninsula in northern Japan. The results confirm that direct payments are effective in enhancing community management and in preventing additional farmland abandonment. In addition, we found that several socioeconomic and environmental factors at both the community and farmer levels—including geographical conditions, collective management activities, absence of successors, farm scale, and off-farm income dependency—simultaneously affected the farmland abandonment process. Specifically, collective practices within and between communities is a significant factor in preventing farmland abandonment more than collaboration with outsiders. Considering the depopulation and aging of rural communities throughout Japan, intercommunity enrollment could improve the effectiveness of CB-PES by upscaling the current payment scheme to maintain community functions.

农业用地占世界陆地面积的 37%，农业生态系统的多种功能——提供食物、水土保持和各种文化服务——对可持续土地管理具有重要意义。为了确保多功能性，已经为异构农业生态系统开发了生态系统服务付费 (PES) 计划。然而，这些计划的效果尚未得到充分衡量，因为在大多数情况下，它们是作为面向行动的计划而不是基于结果的支付来实施的。本研究检验了基于社区的 PES (CB-PES) 计划对防止农田遗弃的影响，以评估 PES 在日本丘陵和山区实施的农业成果。我们采访了注册社区的农民，绘制了注册地块，分析了日本北部能登半岛典型丘陵山区960个农业社区12261名农民的社会经济特征和耕地经营状况的农业普查数据。结果证实，直接支付在加强社区管理和防止额外的农田遗弃方面是有效的。此外，我们发现社区和农民层面的几个社会经济和环境因素——包括地理条件、集体管理活动、没有继任者、农场规模和非农收入依赖——同时影响了耕地撂荒过程。具体而言，社区内部和社区之间的集体做法是防止农田遗弃的重要因素，而不是与外界的合作。