<p>Sustainable agricultural governance depends not only on regulatory enforcement but also on how farmers perceive and respond to sanctions under economic constraints. Using the harmless disposal of dead pigs in China as the empirical context, this study examines the relationships among loss aversion toward administrative penalties, economic vulnerability, and farmers’ disposal behavior. Based on field survey data, we measure farmers’ loss aversion toward fines and detention through an experimental approach and quantify economic vulnerability using the entropy method. The empirical results reveal an asymmetric pattern in farmers’ responses to different sanctions: loss aversion to fines shows limited relevance to harmless disposal, whereas loss aversion to detention is more closely linked to compliant disposal behavior. Economic vulnerability is associated with a lower likelihood of harmless disposal, yet it appears to heighten farmers’ sensitivity to penalty-related losses. Heterogeneity analysis further shows that economic vulnerability is more salient among old-generation and small-scale farmers, while loss aversion to detention plays a stronger role among new-generation and large-scale farmers. These findings underscore the need to integrate psychological responses and economic constraints into the design of agricultural regulation. More broadly, they suggest that promoting sustainable agricultural practices requires regulatory approaches that combine credible enforcement with support for farmers’ economic resilience while accounting for heterogeneity within farming communities.</p>