Abstract: In order to explore whether local farmers’cognitions have effects on the future sustainable development of agriculture, a questionnaire survey was carried out from April to May in 2012 in Gongyi, Henan Province. The results showed that most of the interviewed local farmers could recognize the economic and productive functions and services of agricultural landscape. But there was no obvious evidence indicating that those interviewed local farmers had high cognitions on other functions and services of agricultural landscape, such as ecological, cultural and regulatory functions. 42% interviewees affirmatively expressed their inclination for current situations, 25% interviewees would like to take part in the“Grain for Green Project”instead of growing crops because of the economic compensations offered by the government. This indicated that economic interest was the main driving force for farmers to do some changes on agricultural landscape. Therefore, more deeply studies on the relationships among agricultural landscape management, farmers’developmental intension and government’s decision needed to be conducted in the future.