Strategies for Prioritizing Ecological Construction with Consideration of Agricultural Industry Development in Northern China’s Agro-pastoral Ecotone: A Perspective of Opportunity Cost

In northern China's agro-pastoral ecotone, there are conflicts between agricultural industry and ecological construction resource competition, and also problems urgently to be solved for economic growth and sustainable ecological improvement. Taking the development concept of “lucid waters and lush mountains being mountains of gold and silver” as the guiding principle of prioritizing ecological and green development, this paper studied the strategies for prioritizing ecological construction with consideration of economic development of agricultural industry from the perspective of opportunity cost. Through the analysis of opportunity cost, externality, and Pareto optimal theory, and using the calculation method of the unit equivalent factor value of terrestrial ecological service function, this paper calculated the ecological service value of forest, grassland, and farmland. It found that the ecological value of forest and grassland per unit area was greater than the ecological value of agricultural industry. This indicates that the opportunity cost of farmland for ecological construction was less than that of agricultural industry. Based on the theoretical and quantitative analysis, it came up with recommendations for establishing a comprehensive system for prioritizing ecological construction with consideration of agricultural industry development and establishing and improving the incentive mechanism of ecological construction.