IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/lauspo/v100y2021ics0264837720308395.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Spatio-temporal pattern and driving mechanisms of cropland circulation in China

Author

Listed:
  • Tian, Guangjin
  • Duan, Jinlong
  • Yang, Lan

Abstract

Land circulation is the transfer of land management rights without change of contracting and ownership rights. This is an effective solution for alleviating land fragmentation, facilitating the transfer of surplus rural labor, and improving rural income. Based on the provincial-level survey data from the Ministry of Agriculture of China, this study analyzes the spatio-temporal pattern of cropland circulation based on the cropland circulation rate (CCR), and explores the driving mechanism of cropland circulation from the perspectives of population, economy, agricultural investment, and legalization. The results showed that the CCR exhibited a polarized spatial pattern of “high value in the east and low value in the west” across China. Moreover, we observed significant spatial agglomeration of CCR, with Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Shanghai as centers of high CCR values and Sichuan and Gansu as centers of low CCR values. Furthermore, the spatial disparity of CCR showed an obviously narrowing trend during the period from 2014 to 2018. As for the circulation modes of cropland, the dominant mode in China is leasing (sub-contracting), which is easy to implement and directly increases farmers’ incomes. This paper further found that the critical driving forces of cropland circulation can be summarized as follows: transformation of rural labor to non-farming occupations, improvement of rural income, and legalization of land circulation markets. It should be noted that many off-farm workers have not given up their management rights for cropland, which is due to the following reasons: unstable job opportunities and insufficient social benefits of off-farm workers, low income from land rent and agricultural production, and lack of legal framework for land circulation. Therefore, urban-rural binary household registration (hukou) and migrant worker employment systems in China should be gradually reformed to accelerate the non-farming transformation of rural labor. Preferential policies for industrial investment can be made to attract more factories to operate in rural areas, which will bring more non-farming jobs to local famers and directly increase their incomes. Moreover, financial subsidy policies, land tenure system reform, and farmland consolidation strategies should also be launched to make land circulation more profitable for both land-givers and land-receivers. Finally, laws and regulations could be perfected and enforced to improve the legalization level of the land circulation market.

Suggested Citation

  • Tian, Guangjin & Duan, Jinlong & Yang, Lan, 2021. "Spatio-temporal pattern and driving mechanisms of cropland circulation in China," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 100(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:lauspo:v:100:y:2021:i:c:s0264837720308395
    DOI: 10.1016/j.landusepol.2020.105118
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264837720308395
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.landusepol.2020.105118?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Xie, Hualin & Lu, Hua, 2017. "Impact of land fragmentation and non-agricultural labor supply on circulation of agricultural land management rights," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 68(C), pages 355-364.
    2. Daniel Ayalew Ali & Klaus Deininger & Loraine Ronchi, 2019. "Costs and Benefits of Land Fragmentation: Evidence from Rwanda," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 33(3), pages 750-771.
    3. Deininger, Klaus & Jin, Songqing, 2005. "The potential of land rental markets in the process of economic development: Evidence from China," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 78(1), pages 241-270, October.
    4. Mark Colas & Suqin Ge, 2019. "Transformations in China’s Internal Labor Migration and Hukou System," Journal of Labor Research, Springer, vol. 40(3), pages 296-331, September.
    5. Deininger, Klaus & Savastano, Sara & Carletto, Calogero, 2012. "Land Fragmentation, Cropland Abandonment, and Land Market Operation in Albania," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 40(10), pages 2108-2122.
    6. Carter, Michael R. & Zimmerman, Frederick J., 2000. "The dynamic cost and persistence of asset inequality in an agrarian economy," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 63(2), pages 265-302, December.
    7. Jipeng Zhang & Ru Wang & Chong Lu, 2019. "A quantitative analysis of Hukou reform in Chinese cities: 2000–2016," Growth and Change, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 50(1), pages 201-221, March.
    8. Zhou, Yang & Guo, Liying & Liu, Yansui, 2019. "Land consolidation boosting poverty alleviation in China: Theory and practice," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 339-348.
    9. Zhang, Yuanxia & Halder, Pradipta & Zhang, Xiaoning & Qu, Mei, 2020. "Analyzing the deviation between farmers' Land transfer intention and behavior in China's impoverished mountainous Area: A Logistic-ISM model approach," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 94(C).
    10. Klaus Deininger & Daniel Ayalew Ali & Tekie Alemu, 2011. "Impacts of Land Certification on Tenure Security, Investment, and Land Market Participation: Evidence from Ethiopia," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 87(2), pages 312-334.
    11. Feder, Gershon & Feeny, David, 1991. "Land Tenure and Property Rights: Theory and Implications for Development Policy," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 5(1), pages 135-153, January.
    12. Kung, James Kai-sing, 2002. "Off-Farm Labor Markets and the Emergence of Land Rental Markets in Rural China," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(2), pages 395-414, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Meng Yang & Ting Sun & Tao Liu, 2023. "The Heterogeneous Effects of Multilevel Centers on Farmland Transfer: Evidence from Tai’an Prefecture, China," Land, MDPI, vol. 12(10), pages 1-19, September.
    2. Weiwen Wang & Jian Gong & Ying Wang & Yang Shen, 2022. "The Causal Pathway of Rural Human Settlement, Livelihood Capital, and Agricultural Land Transfer Decision-Making: Is It Regional Consistency?," Land, MDPI, vol. 11(7), pages 1-24, July.
    3. Jiachen Ning & Pingyu Zhang & Qifeng Yang & Zuopeng Ma, 2023. "Spatial Pattern of Farmland Transfer in Liaoning Province, China," Agriculture, MDPI, vol. 13(7), pages 1-19, July.
    4. Li, Fang & Feng, Shuyi & Lu, Hualiang & Qu, Futian & D’Haese, Marijke, 2021. "How do non-farm employment and agricultural mechanization impact on large-scale farming? A spatial panel data analysis from Jiangsu Province, China," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 107(C).
    5. Xusen Zhu & Chaofu Wei & Fengtai Zhang & Junyi Zhang & Yuedong Xiao & Xingyu Yang, 2022. "Influencing Factors of Farmers’ Land Circulation in Mountainous Chongqing in China Based on A Multi-Class Logistic Model," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(12), pages 1-16, June.
    6. Junnan Liu & Tong Chen & Yulan Song, 2022. "Coupling Coordination and Interactivity between Farmland Transfer and Rural Financial Development: Evidence from Western China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(24), pages 1-28, December.
    7. Yiqing Su & Qiaoyuan Huang & Qi Meng & Liangzhen Zang & Hua Xiao, 2023. "Socialized Farmland Operation—An Institutional Interpretation of Farmland Scale Management," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(4), pages 1-21, February.
    8. Lili Chen & Jiquan Peng & Yibei Zhang, 2022. "Research on the Impact of Rural Land Transfer on Non-Farm Employment of Farm Households: Evidence from Hubei Province, China," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(23), pages 1-19, November.
    9. Wang, Liye & Zhang, Siyu & Xiong, Qiangqiang & Liu, Yu & Liu, Yanfang & Liu, Yaolin, 2022. "Spatiotemporal dynamics of cropland expansion and its driving factors in the Yangtze River Economic Belt: A nuanced analysis at the county scale," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 119(C).
    10. Qi Wang & Min Xiong & Qiquan Li & Hao Li & Ting Lan & Ouping Deng & Rong Huang & Min Zeng & Xuesong Gao, 2021. "Spatially Explicit Reconstruction of Cropland Using the Random Forest: A Case Study of the Tuojiang River Basin, China from 1911 to 2010," Land, MDPI, vol. 10(12), pages 1-18, December.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Wang, Hui & Riedinger, Jeffrey & Jin, Songqing, 2015. "Land documents, tenure security and land rental development: Panel evidence from China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 220-235.
    2. Wenjun Guo & Wei Zhao & Min Min, 2022. "Operation Scale, Transfer Experience, and Farmers’ Willingness toward Farmland Transfer-In: A Case Study of Rice–Crayfish Cultivating Regions in China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(7), pages 1-16, March.
    3. Wenjing Han & Zhengfeng Zhang & Xiaoling Zhang & Li He, 2021. "Farmland Rental Participation, Agricultural Productivity, and Household Income: Evidence from Rural China," Land, MDPI, vol. 10(9), pages 1-22, August.
    4. Jiang, Meishan & Paudel, Krishna P. & Mi, Yunsheng & Li, Jingrong, 2023. "Farmland transfer and rural financial structure: Evidence from China," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 90(C).
    5. Han Zhang & Jari Kuuluvainen & Youliang Ning & Wenmei Liao & Can Liu, 2017. "Institutional Regime, Off-Farm Employment, and the Interaction Effect: What are the Determinants of Households’ Forestland Transfer in China?," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(10), pages 1-15, October.
    6. Xusen Zhu & Chaofu Wei & Fengtai Zhang & Junyi Zhang & Yuedong Xiao & Xingyu Yang, 2022. "Influencing Factors of Farmers’ Land Circulation in Mountainous Chongqing in China Based on A Multi-Class Logistic Model," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(12), pages 1-16, June.
    7. Shaikh M. S. U. Eskander & Edward B. Barbier, 2023. "Adaptation to Natural Disasters through the Agricultural Land Rental Market: Evidence from Bangladesh," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 99(1), pages 141-160.
    8. Ma, Meilin, 2023. "Interdependent investments in attached and movable assets under insecure land rights," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).
    9. Yang, Ziyan, 2020. "Contract design in China’s rural land rental market: Contractual flexibility and rental payments," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 178(C), pages 15-43.
    10. Zhou, Yang & Li, Xunhuan & Liu, Yansui, 2020. "Rural land system reforms in China: History, issues, measures and prospects," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 91(C).
    11. Haizi Wang & Chaowei Li & Juan Liu & Shibin Zhang, 2019. "Research on Farmers’ Willingness of Land Transfer Behavior Based on Food Security," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(8), pages 1-17, April.
    12. Deininger, Klaus & Savastano, Sara & Xia, Fang, 2017. "Smallholders’ land access in Sub-Saharan Africa: A new landscape?," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 67(C), pages 78-92.
    13. Alia, Didier & Kusunose, Yoko & Theriault, Veronique, 2016. "Land rental, farm investment, productivity, and efficiency in Burkina Faso," 2016 Annual Meeting, July 31-August 2, Boston, Massachusetts 236169, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    14. Ren, Guangcheng & Zhu, Xueqin & Heerink, Nico & Feng, Shuyi, 2020. "Rural household migration in China – the roles of actual and perceived tenure security," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 63(C).
    15. Lili Chen & Hongsheng Chen & Chaohui Zou & Ye Liu, 2021. "The Impact of Farmland Transfer on Rural Households’ Income Structure in the Context of Household Differentiation: A Case Study of Heilongjiang Province, China," Land, MDPI, vol. 10(4), pages 1-20, April.
    16. Tongwei Qiu & Xinjie Shi & Biliang Luo, 2022. "Formalizing agricultural rentals in China: Does local public action help?," Development Policy Review, Overseas Development Institute, vol. 40(4), July.
    17. Wang, Yahui & Li, Xiubin & Lu, Dan & Yan, Jianzhong, 2020. "Evaluating the impact of land fragmentation on the cost of agricultural operation in the southwest mountainous areas of China," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 99(C).
    18. Jing Xu & Jing Huang & Zhengfeng Zhang & Xiaokun Gu, 2021. "The Impact of Family Capital on Farmers’ Participation in Farmland Transfer: Evidence from Rural China," Land, MDPI, vol. 10(12), pages 1-20, December.
    19. Deng, Xin & Xu, Dingde & Zeng, Miao & Qi, Yanbin, 2019. "Does early-life famine experience impact rural land transfer? Evidence from China," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 81(C), pages 58-67.
    20. Thomas Vendryes, 2014. "Peasants Against Private Property Rights: A Review Of The Literature," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(5), pages 971-995, December.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:lauspo:v:100:y:2021:i:c:s0264837720308395. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Joice Jiang (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.journals.elsevier.com/land-use-policy .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.