Farmland transfer is one of the important means to transform small farmers and realize the connection between small farmers and modern agricultural development. However, farmers generally transfer farmland to their relatives, friends and neighbors, which does not fully follow the principle of maximizing income. In this regard, based on the theory of mental account, this paper deconstructs the genetic mechanism of the object selection of farmland transfer. The results show that：(1) The property right attribute of farmland leads farmers to form farmland mental account which falls into acquaintance mental account and stranger mental account according to the differences of transaction objects.(2）According to the mental account rules, farmers transfer farmland to acquaintances because the income （consisting of immediate income and expected income） is greater than the loss （consisting of explicit cost）, and they choose to transfer to strangers because the income （composed of immediate income） is less than or equal to the loss （composed of explicit cost and implicit cost）. Therefore， the key to the marketization of agricultural land elements is to increase the income or reduce the loss of strangers’ mental account. Based on the case of Jiangxi Green Energy Company and the empirical test of Guangdong Thousand Villages Survey, it is found that the path to promote the marketization of agricultural land elements is to take the village committee as the agent, encouraging social capital to promote agricultural land transfer, helping farmers in land equity participation and building agricultural land transfer service platform or transfering out the concentrated farmers’ land.