Abstract: Three changes' reform is expected to play a major role in the rural revitalization strategy, but few studies have focused on the farmers' willingness to participate. In this case study of S Village in Gansu Province, based on the Sustainable Livelihood Approach (SLA) and Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA), the author analyzed the impact of livelihood capital and risk perception on the farmers' willingness to participate in the ‘three changes’ reform. The results show that, on the whole, farmers are not satisfied with the actual effects of the ‘three changes’ reform, and their enthusiasm has dropped sharply, since more than 50% of households regret their participation. The main reasons are less improved livelihoods, high opportunity costs and perceived information risk. Human capital, natural capital and information risk have a significant impact on the changes of farmers' willingness to participate. Specifically, households with higher human capital, more natural capital (i.e. arable land), and stronger perception of information risk tend to regret. Besides, in places where the ‘sleeping’ high-value resources can be explored clearly and stably by the transformation of original production and operation management, the ‘three changes’ reform can achieve success more easily. This suggests that the market can play a more important role to choose a suitable place. In particular, the ‘three changes’ reform must be implemented more cautiously in the agglomerated villages than in the suburban and the characteristic ones, where the location, resource characteristics and integration of three industries are better.