The enforcement of grain-to-green program converts large areas of farmlands to forests; its effi-ciency in turn affects the evaluation on the impacts of the policy. Farmlands covering a total area of approxi-mately 2.54 × 106 hm2 were returned to forests in Qinba mountainous area

accounting for 10% of all the farmland planned to be converted. According to the questionnaires and the interviews carried out on 10 town-ships from 7 counties of the 3 provinces

the ecological benefits of the porgram were becoming explicit while the economic benefits did not match the expectation

which mainly results from the lack of scientific planning and technical instruction. Consequently

the ecological goal of the government has been achieved while the economic goal to substitute long-term income sources of the farmland owner has not been achieved completely (encouraging farmers to work temporally in the cities cannot ensure their income source permanently

espe-cially at their old ages). To achieve both of the ecological and economic goals

instruction and demonstration of feasible technologies and follow-up technical supports are required.