Impacts Of Cultivated Land Fragmentation On Farmers' Cultivated Land Use Efficiency

Cultivated land use efficiency has always been a major matter of great concern to society.The implementation of the household contract responsibility system in China has greatly stimulated the production enthusiasm of farmers,promoted the improvement of rural labor productivity and the rapid development of agricultural production,and made a great contribution to the whole national economic and social development.But under the basic national conditions of a large population with relativity little cultivated land,land sharing system under the household contract responsibility system exacerbated the cultivated land fragmentation phenomenon.With the gradual acceleration of urbanization process and the continuous improvement of market economy,the endowment of agricultural production factors and the factors affecting the allocation of agricultural production factors are gradually changing.In this case,how does cultivated land fragmentation impact on cultivated land use efficiency? What is the law? Currently academic research on this issue is lack of systematic and intensive study.In view of this,this paper take “Impacts of cultivated land fragmentation on farmers' cultivated land use efficiency” as the title,aims to reveal the impact mechanism of cultivated land fragmentation on farmer's cultivated land use efficiency in the current market economy and find the general rule of the impact of cultivated land fragmentation on farmer's cultivated land use efficiency,and provides a theoretical basis and case support for improving cultivated land use efficiency,promoting the quality and efficiency of agriculture and increasing farmers' income.Firstly,this paper defines the connotation and extension of cultivated land use efficiency,and reveals the impact mechanisms of cultivated land fragmentation on farmer's single factor productivity,total factor productivity,technical efficiency and allocative efficiency in the current market economy,and then puts forward the hypotheses.Secondly,the evaluation index system of cultivated land fragmentation degree was constructed from the farmers micro perspective,and cultivated land fragmentation degree was measured by comprehensive index method using farmer questionnaire data surveyed in some counties of Wuhan and Xianning in Hubei Province.Finally,Cobb-Douglas production function,the translog stochastic frontier production function,Cobb-Douglas stochastic frontier cost function and Tobit model were used to test the impacts of cultivated land fragmentation on farmer's single factor productivity,total factor productivity,technical efficiency and allocative efficiency in the current market economy.The main conclusions are as follows:(1)Cultivated land use efficiency reflects the rational allocation and the utilization level of cultivated land,labor,capital and other elements,in order to achieve maximum output and cost minimization.Farmers use cultivated land to engage in agricultural production activities,not only to maximize productivity,but also to maximize production efficiency.Therefore,only from the two aspects of productivity and production efficiency,can we make a comprehensive and accurate evaluation of farmer's cultivated land use efficiency.Farmer's cultivated land use efficiency includes not only single factor productivity and total factor productivity that reflect the proportion between input and output,but also technical efficiency and allocative efficiency that reflect the allocation between input and output.Cultivated land use efficiency in the study area showed a certain spatial distribution: Due to the difference in landform in the study area,farmers' cultivated land productivity,labor productivity,capital productivity,total factor productivity and cultivated land use technical efficiency showed a general pattern of high in the northern hillock and plain area and low in the southern low mountain and hilly area.But farmers' cultivated land use allocative efficiency in the hillock and plain area was slightly lower than that in the low mountain and hill area.(2)Cultivated land fragmentation includes two forms: the physical form and the property rights form.Farmers are the most important managers of cultivated land,so it more reasonable to construct the evaluation index system of cultivated land fragmentation degree based on farmers' perspective.Selection of indicators of cultivated land fragmentation should be based on the characteristics of cultivated land fragmentation,that is,the area,number,and distribution of land parcels.Therefore,average area of parcels,number of parcels,and average distance between parcels were selected to measure the degree of cultivated land fragmentation.Using farmer scoring method to determine evaluation index weights and then comprehensive index method was employed to evaluate regional cultivated land fragmentation degree based on farmers' perspective.Cultivated land fragmentation in the study area showed a certain regularity,that is,cultivated land fragmentation degree showed a general pattern of low in the northern hillock and plain area and high in the southern low mountain and hilly area.Cultivated land transfer increased cultivated land fragmentation degree instead of reducing.The main reason was that the rented land and the contracted land were not adjacent,even far away from each other.Even if the rented land adjacent to farmer's contracted land,but due to the issue of property rights,agricultural comparative benefits were low and other problems,it is impossible to consolidate the rented land and the contracted land.(3)In the current market economy that farmland transfer market and non-agricultural labor market were active while agricultural labor market and agricultural capital loan market were underdeveloped,cultivated land fragmentation had an effect on farmers' single factor productivity and total factor productivity,the direction depended largely on the normalization of farmland transfer market and the cultivated land area of farmer management,and its negative impact enhanced with the improvement of farmland circulation market and the increase of cultivated land management scale.If farmers transferred in cultivated land at market price,cultivated land fragmentation had a negative effect on single factor productivity and total factor productivity.If the transfer price was lower than market price,the direction of the impact of cultivated land fragmentation on single factor productivity and total factor productivity depended on the scale of cultivated land management.Its specific performance was as follows: When the scale of cultivated land management was small,cultivated land fragmentation had a positive effect on land productivity,the effect of cultivated land fragmentation on labor productivity was not significant,but had a negative effect on capital productivity and total factor productivity;When the scale of cultivated land management was large,land fragmentation had a negative effect on land productivity and labor productivity,had a positive effect on capital productivity and total factor productivity,but with the increase of cultivated land management scale,the positive effect of cultivated land fragmentation on capital productivity and total factor efficiency gradually weakened,while the negative effect gradually enhanced.(4)In the current market economy that farmland transfer market and non-agricultural labor market were active while agricultural labor market and agricultural capital loan market were underdeveloped,cultivated land fragmentation had an effect on farmers' technical efficiency and allocative efficiency,the direction depended largely on the normalization of farmland transfer market and the cultivated land area of farmer management,and its negative impact enhanced with the improvement of farmland circulation market and the increase of cultivated land management scale.If farmers transferred in cultivated land at market price,cultivated land fragmentation had a negative effect on technical efficiency and allocative efficiency.If the transfer price was lower than market price,the direction of the impact of cultivated land fragmentation on technical efficiency and allocative efficiency depended on the scale of cultivated land management.Its specific performance was as follows: When the scale of cultivated land management was small,cultivated land fragmentation had a negative effect on technical efficiency,but had a positive effect on allocative efficiency;When the scale of cultivated land management was large,land fragmentation had a negative effect on allocative efficiency,had a positive effect on technical efficiency,but with the increase of cultivated land management scale,the positive effect of cultivated land fragmentation on technical efficiency gradually weakened,while the negative effect gradually enhanced.(5)The necessary and sufficient conditions for improving cultivated land use efficiency wre a normative farmland transfer market and the lower degree of cultivated land fragmentation.Compared with the farmers transferring in land at market price,cultivated land productivity,labor productivity,capital productivity,total factor productivity,technical efficiency and allocative efficiency of the farmers transferring in land below market price were higher respectively 16.82%,69.68%,13.13%,15.14%,2.89%,3.01%.As for the farmers transferring in land at market price,cultivated land management area had a positive effect on labor productivity,capital productivity and allocation efficiency,but had a negative effect on cultivated land productivity and total factor productivity,and the impact of cultivated land management area on technical efficiency was unstable,the reason was that current cultivated land transfer did not reduce the degree of cultivated land fragmentation,the positive impact of scale management on cultivated land use efficiency had been constrained by cultivated land fragmentation.According to the conclusion above,this paper puts forward the following policy recommendations:(1)Realize the urbanization of agricultural surplus labor in an orderly way.Take a new path of urbanization,realize the urbanization of agricultural surplus labor in an orderly way,help them settle in cities and enjoy the same treatment as urban residents,reduce their dependence on farmland,then promote them to voluntarily withdraw contracted farmland,and create favorable conditions for promoting farmland transfer and moderate-scale land management.(2)Standardize and improve farmland transfer market.Based on the verification,registration and certification of the contracted management right of rural land,establish a regional farmland transfer service platform,further standardize farmland transfer market,use the economic leverage to make more cultivated land flow into large grain growers,family farms,agricultural cooperatives,agricultural leading enterprises and other new agricultural managers,and provide institutional assurance for realizing moderate-scale land management and improving cultivated land use efficiency.(3)Innovate contracted land withdrawal mechanism and farmland consolidation implementation model,improve the coupling degree of farmland consolidation and farmland transfer,reduce cultivated land fragmentation degree,and provide material basis for improving cultivated land use efficiency.The specific measures are as follows: First,encourage the citizen farmers completely withdraw from their contracted land,both“physical” and “property right”.Second,vigorously cultivate and develop large grain growers,agricultural cooperatives,agricultural leading enterprises and other new agricultural managers,encourage farmers to take land management right as share,and encourage the new agricultural managers to participate in farmland consolidation.Third,according to local conditions,implement land trust,and encourage farmers to withdraw from the physical form of contracted land,not “property right”,to promote the development of agricultural industrialization.