An Evolutionary Game Perspective for Promoting Utilization of Crop Straw as Energy: A Case Study in Guangdong

The industrialization of using crop straw as energy is currently hindered by systemic bottlenecks, including high collection and storage costs, a poorly coordinated industrial chain, and underdeveloped market mechanism. This study takes Guangdong province as a case study to construct a tripartite evolutionary game model on the transition of straw to energy among the government, enterprises, and farmers. Different from previous studies that focused on the strategy of penalizing the open burning of straw by farmers, this work investigated the cooperation of farmers for straw removal from field, the operational strategies of enterprises for straw utilization as energy, and the selection of government-guided incentive policies. It analyzes the behavioral evolution of these stakeholders under various incentive policies and cooperative scenarios. Numerical simulations were performed to identify the system’s evolutionary stable strategies and assess the potential of expanding straw for energy utilization. It indicated that mild government intervention could lead to a stable equilibrium through facilitating the removal of straw from fields and the utilization of straw as energy by enterprises. Farmers were sensitive to the fluctuation of acquisition price, and their willingness to cooperate would be negatively impacted by a large-scale price reduction. Enterprise expansion was exposed to significant risk under intensive policy intervention. The feasible pathway to increase the proportion of straw utilization as energy in Guangdong began at a small scale. Under mild incentive policies, a scenario targeting a 20% increase was more likely to achieve a market equilibrium for large-scale production than that targeting a 55% increase. The government should draw up positive incentive policies to promote the utilization of straw as energy. By guiding farmers in straw removal from the field and improving the energy enterprises’ competitiveness, the government should curb irrational industry expansion and corporate speculation, and shift from investment support to incentive policies. Meanwhile, the ecological construction of industry and supply chains should be enhanced, and the scale should be used to reduce the high supply-side costs of the straw. It would overcome the central barrier to the commercialization of straw utilization as energy. This work sets an example for conducting dynamic analysis of multi-stakeholder interactions for straw utilization.