Spatiotemporal changes in Chinese land circulation between 2003 and 2013

Abstract

Land circulation is an important measure that can be utilized to enable agricultural management at a moderate scale. It is therefore imperative to explore spatiotemporal changes in land circulation and the factors that drive these variations in order to maintain and increase the vitality of the land rental market. An initial analysis of spatiotemporal patterns in land circulation is presented in this study on the basis of data from 169,511 farm households between 2003 and 2013. The rural fixed observation point system advocated by the Chinese Ministry of Agriculture was utilized for this analysis, and Heckman two-stage models were developed and estimated in order to identify the drivers of regional differences in land circulation at the national scale and at the levels of different terrains. The results of this study show that the rate of land circulation in China rose from 15.09% to 25.1% over the course of the study period, an average rate of 0.8%. More specifically, data show that the rate of land circulation in the south of China has been higher than in the north, that the average land rental payment was 4256.13 yuan per ha, and that 55.05% of households did not pay such a fee during the land circulation process. In contrast, the average rent obtained was 3648.45 yuan per ha nationally even though 52.63% of households did not obtain any payments from their tenants. The results show that land quality, geographic location, transaction costs, and household characteristics have significantly affected land circulation in different regions of China. Specifically, the marginal effects of land quality and geographic location were larger in the plain regions, while transaction cost was the key factor influencing land circulation in the hilly and mountainous regions. The signal identified in this study, rent-free land circulation, is indicative of a mismatch that has led to the marginalization of mountainous regions and higher transaction costs that have reduced the potential value of land resources. Thus, as the opportunity cost of farming continues to rise across China, the depreciation of land assets will become irreversible and the phenomenon of land abandonment will become increasingly prevalent in hilly and mountainous regions in the future. The transaction costs associated with the land rental market should be reduced to mitigate these effects by establishing land circulation intermediaries at the township level, and the critical issues of land abandonment and poverty reduction in hilly and mountainous regions should arouse more attention.

Research on Farmers’ Willingness of Land Transfer Behavior Based on Food Security

“…Feder Feeney (1993) and Kung J.K. [33] argued that clarity around land property rights can facilitate land transactions. Wang Yahui (2018) et al [38] found that land quality, geographic location, transaction costs, and household characteristics significantly affected land circulation in different regions by analysing spatial and temporal patterns in land circulation. Terry (2003) [39] believed that many farmers, given their own interests and rational considerations, will have concerns about land transactions that will hinder land circulation and market construction.…”

“…The results showed that age, education level, number of migrant workers, family income structure, non-agricultural employment capacity and the distance between the farmland and the city were significantly positively correlated with farmers' land outflow behaviour, but the degree of cultivated land incompleteness was significantly negatively correlated with rural land circulation. From the existing literature, the factors affecting the land transfer of farmers include the gender of the head of the household, education level, physical condition, marital status, farmers' ideology, family population, non-agricultural population ratio [61,62], determination of property rights [63], land location conditions, per capita income, social security [15], difficulty of finding a job, family labour force, non-agricultural income [64], degree of land fragmentation, land transfer income, farmers' expectations for the stability of land rights, agricultural technology application [65], whether there are intermediary organizations in the process of land transfer, changes in the rural production environment [66], whether farmers participate in social security, transaction price of land transfer, cost of land transfer [67], distance between the peasant(farmer) family and town [1,38], government policies [15,29]. These studies were based on the basic assumption that farmers, as the subject of behavioural decision-making, face an objective reality that is the basis for their decision-making.…”

An Estimation of the Extent of Rent-Free Farmland Transfer and Its Driving Forces in Rural China: A Multilevel Logit Model Analysis

“…Another study conducted in Jiangsu, Hubei, Heilongjiang and Guangxi Provinces suggests that more than 30% of farmland has been transferred without any rent [9]. Furthermore, there are significant differences in the proportion of rent-free land transfers in different terrains, among which approximately 40% is in plain areas and 60% in mountainous areas [10]. In 2015, the proportion of rent-free land transfers in typical mountainous areas exceeded 70%, such as in Chongqing City [10].…”

“…Furthermore, there are significant differences in the proportion of rent-free land transfers in different terrains, among which approximately 40% is in plain areas and 60% in mountainous areas [10]. In 2015, the proportion of rent-free land transfers in typical mountainous areas exceeded 70%, such as in Chongqing City [10]. Nowadays, informal land transfer, especially rent-free land transfer, is particularly prominent, and it is an expression of the imperfect development and imperfection of the land rental market [11].…”

“…To pursue the security of land contract rights, farmers usually transfer land out to relatives or acquaintances with little or no rent. If the acquaintance society can explain the rent-free land transfer, farmers have had a strong acquaintance society since ancient times in China [10,15]. Why was land transferred for a higher rent in some historical periods, even if the land was transferred to relatives?…”