Fragmentation Reduction through Farmer-Led Land Transfer and Consolidation? Experiences of Rice Farmers in Wuhan Metropolitan Area, China

Abstract

Land fragmentation has become a serious obstacle to agricultural production, and land transfer and consolidation are traditionally emphasized as the two most effective solutions to this quandary. To identify the extent of land fragmentation accurately and systematically, this study selected the number of plots, the average size of plots, and the average distance between plots to calculate the land fragmentation index (LFI). Taking the Wuhan metropolitan area as a case study, this study examined the effectiveness of farmer-led land transfer and consolidation on land fragmentation. The main results are as follows: (a) most of the transferred plots and contracted plots were not spatially adjacent, suggesting that the tenants could not merge and consolidate both plots; (b) land transfer caused the LFI to increase by 2.85%, suggesting that land transfer had intensified the degree of land fragmentation to some extent; (c) if the transferred and contracted plots were non-adjacent or adjacent but unmerged and unconsolidated, then the LFI might increase or decrease; (d) if the transferred and contracted plots were spatially adjacent, merged, and consolidated, then the LFI decreased significantly.

How Does Land Fragmentation Affect Agricultural Technical Efficiency? Based on Mediation Effects Analysis

“…In low-altitude regions, the primary reason for the huge number of plots and amount of land dispersion is the family contract responsibility system and other property rights system factors [50]. To address this issue, farmers should be encouraged to voluntarily participate in land swaps [11,51,52]. In particular, farmers who have primarily engaged in non-agricultural activities and have a high degree of part-time employment should be encouraged to transfer their farmland [53,54].…”

“…Furthermore, implementing ecosystem restoration projects to mitigate and reverse land degradation [8], optimizing the allocation of agricultural production resources, and enhancing the agricultural technical efficiency are also vital [9]. The current objective of promoting agricultural land transfer and consolidation in China is to optimize Land 2024, 13, 284 2 of 19 land resource allocation and reduce cultivated land fragmentation, with the objective of improving agricultural production efficiency [10,11].…”

Can farmers’ combined-tillage promote the agricultural production efficiency? - Evidence from land fragmentation

“…Land fragmentation (LF) is a universal trait of all agricultural systems that affect farmland productivity and rural development (ZHANG & CHEN, 2021), LF also relates to food security. Since the reform and opening-up, China has gradually built a dual management system, which is a combination of both centralization and decentralization based on households contracting .…”

How do socioeconomic differentiation and rural governance affect households' land transfer decisions? Evidence from China

“…), land transfer facilitates large-scale and modernized land management (Daymard, 2022). It serves several vital functions, including reducing land fragmentation (Zhang & Chen, 2021), improving resource utilization efficiency (Fei et al, 2021;Gao et al, 2019), safeguarding food security (Deng et al, 2019), encouraging migration of rural labor (Liu et al, 2017), and raising household income (Udimal et al, 2020). Kelley et al, 2020;Wang et al, 2020;Zhang et al, 2020).…”