Study On Farm Households’ Behavior Response To Saline Farm Land Property Rights Arrangement

Land salt-alkalinization is the prelude of desertification, which is the interactions result of the natural factors such as climate, water, light, heat and the patterns of land use for human beings. Land-use behaviors of farm households play an important role of the sustainable development of agriculture and saline-alkali land resources. Taking the Yellow River delta, the Western Songnen Plain and Yily valley region as the study area, on the basis of connotation of sustainable development of agriculture and saline-alkali land resources, the study discussed the relationship among the arrangement of property rights system of saline-alkali land, farm households’decision behavior and sustainable development of agriculture and saline-alkali land resources by the relevant econometric model, which was from perspective of the property rights system of saline-alkali land. The study included the following aspects:(1) The mechanism analysis of property rights system of saline-alkali land and the sustainable development of agriculture. On the basis of land property rights theory, sustainable agriculture theory and farmer households’ behavior theory, this study defined the connotation of farmland property rights and sustainable development of agriculture and saline-alkali land resources. Then, according to practice and research result, domestic and international, this part proposed the premise hypothesis, further analyzed the action mechanism of property rights system of saline-alkali land and sustainable development of agriculture.(2) The response of the farmers’ cultivation decision-making behavior to the arrangement of property rights system of saline-alkali land. Based on the tobit function, the response model of the farmers’land management behavior to the arrangement of property right system of saline-alkali land was built. The results showed that:①The impact of the arrangement of property right system of saline-alkali land to the farmers’land management mainly reflected on the steady of the farmland property rights, the safety of farmland transfer, the fragmentation of farmland and the coordination degree between human and farmland resource. With the growth of every unit of the steady of the farmland property right, the proportion of the area of farmer household inflow cultivated land to the whole operating area(abbreviated as y1in the following) would increase by15.8%; With growth of every unit of the safety of the farmland transfer, the absolute value of y1would increase0.156; With increase of per-capita contracted field areas of farmer households by1%, y1would reduce by16.8%; With decrease of the pieces of farmer households’contracted field by1%, the absolute value of y1would increase0.198.②The factors of farmer household themselves which influenced y1, the order was from high to low:farmer household income structure> the age of farm household> farming willingness to saline-alkali land of farm households> the amount of labor force> educational level. Among all the factors.farmer household income structure, the amount of labor force, farming willingness to saline-alkali land of farm households, educational level were correlated positively with y1, while the age of farm household had a negative correlation with1.③The factor of agriculture insurance had a positive correlation with y1, while the factors of the degree of salt-alkilinization and agricultural subsidy had a negative correlation with y1. According the regional difference, the results showed that:①the characters of single planting structure and low multiple cropping index are obvious in Kenli and Zhenlai with cotton and rice differently. In Chabuchaer, the paddy-upland crop rotation and multiple cropping modes are adopted on the stock saline-alkali land, while the abandonment phenomena are serious on the new saline-alkali land. In the all, the halophytic economic crop and food crop are main land use types, while the scale of halophytic plant and age crop is lower.②the dependent variable of y1is the highest in Kenli, Zhenlai second, Chabuchaer the last. It is good for y1to improve the safety of farmland transfer and reduce the fragmentation of farmland in Kenli. In Zhenlai, technology demonstration and multiple subdies including monetary, policy and physical subsidies play the important role. In Chabuchaer, the measure of subsidy strategic with stage differentiation in the saline-alkali land reclamation should be taken.(3) The response of the farmers’fertilization behavior to the arrangement of property rights system of saline-alkali land. Based on the ordered probit function, the response model of the farmers’ behavior of the ameliorative fertilizer application to the arrangement of property right system of saline-alkali land was built. The results showed that:①With the whole sample data, the order of the farmland property right factors was:the type of farmland property rights> the steady of the farmland property rights> the cognitive level of farmer households to the farmland property rights> the willingness of farmland mortgage for farm households, which influenced the decision-making to the ameliorative fertilizer application for farm householders (abbreviated as y2in the following). The more stable the farmland property rights, the higher cognitive level of farmer household to the farmland property right, the higher willingness to mortgage their land, the farm households were more willing to apply the ameliorative fertilizer to saline-alkali land. Compared to contracted field and sub-contracted field, farmer households prefer to improve the investment on the saline-alkali land developed by themselves. In addition, the agriculture policy and service system and the farm households’ characteristics were related to y2closely, including subsidy of manure fertilizer or not, farming willingness to saline-alkali land of farm households, improving technology of saline-alkali land and the degree of completeness, the type of land utilization in descending order by the influence degree.②According to the samples investigated from different counties, the simulation results existed great differences. Firstly, in Kenli County, by the decline order, the farmland property right factors were:the safety of farmland property right> the steady of the farmland property rights> the type of farmland property rights> the cognitive level of farmer households to the farmland property rights. While the area of sample field had a positive correlation with y2, the factors of educational level and farmer household income structure had a negative correlation with y2. Secondly, in Zhenlai county, the property right factors which influence y2, mainly included the type of farmland property rights and the willingness of farmland mortgage for farm households. The characteristics of sample fields and the farm households had great influence on the dependent variable. In particular, the following factors had significant negative correlation with y2which including the degree of salt-alkilinization, educational level of farm householder, farmer household income structure and farming willingness to saline-alkali land of farm households, while the operation scale of farm households was positively correlated with y2. Thirdly, in Chabuchaer county, the factor of farmland property right didn’t have an obvious impact on y2, but the others were the main positively driving factors, including subsidy of manure fertilizer, the type of land utilization, farming willingness to saline-alkali land of farm households, the cognitive level of farmer households to the farmland property rights and the improving technology of saline-alkali land and the degree of completeness. According to the regression results, the convenience of credit and the willingness of farmland mortgage for farm households were important factors to y2with the negative correlation.(4) The response of the farmers’ water resources utilization behavior to the arrangement of property rights system of saline-alkali land. Base on binary Logistic function, the response model of the farmers’behavior of water resources utilization to the arrangement of property right system of saline-alkali land was built. In this chapter, with the farmers’behavior of water resources utilization as the dependent variable (abbreviated as y3in the following), two scenarios were defined according whether the farm household was involved with cultivated land occupation or not(if so, taken as scenario Ⅰ; if not, taken as scenario Ⅱ), and then quantitative simulation was carried out respectively. The results showed that:①The factors of saline-alkali land resource utilization and property right, water resource utilization, farmer household characteristics and the external support of government subsidy were closely related with y3by the whole samples. In particular, firstly, the operation scale of farm households had a positive correlation with y3. In scenario Ⅱ, the influence degree was significantly increased. Besides, the worse the fragmentation of farmland, the more frequency of land adjustment, the lower willingness for farm households to adopt the right irrigation technologies. Secondly, the lower the guarantee degree of irrigation water resources, the greater the proportion of water expense in the whole agriculture investment, the stronger willingness for farm households to adopt the right irrigation technologies. In scenario Ⅱ, the matching degree of irrigation and water conservancy facilities affected y3also with a positive correlation.Thirdly, the factors of the amount of labor force and farmer household income structure had a negative correlation with y3. While the subsidy to irrigation and water conservancy facilities from government played an important driving role to the farmer households’decision-making.②In scenario I, the result of simulation based on the county samples shows that in Kenli county, the order of factors influencing y3from high to low was the subsidy to irrigation and water conservancy facilities> the steady of the farmland property rights> the operation scale of farm households> the shortage of water resource> the matching degree of irrigation and water conservancy facilities. The more subsidy supplied by the government, the more stable the farmland property rights, the worse the shortage of water resource, the more completed the irrigation and water conservancy facilities and the bigger the operation scale of farm households, the stronger willingness for farm households to adopt the right irrigation technologies. In Zhenlai county, the order of factors influencing y3from high to low followed:the type of land utilization> the fragmentation of farmland> educational level of farm household> the shortage of water resource> the subsidy to irrigation and water conservancy facilities. The more subsidy supplied by the government, the higher proportion of paddy fields, the worse the shortage of water resource, the higher education level of farmer household, the less the number of field, the stronger willingness for farm households to adopt the right irrigation technologies. In Chabuchaer county, the order of factors influencing y3from high to low was:the type of land utilization> the matching degree of irrigation and water conservancy facilities≥the amount of labor force> the operation scale of farm households.③In scenario Ⅱ, the goodness of fit test performed well, but the factors there weren’t significant correlation with the obvious difference respectively in the study areas.(5) Based on the above analysis and the public policy supply and demand theory, combined with the agriculture practice in typical saline-alkali land areas in China, the study put forward the integrated system of management methods for the purpose of sustainable development of agriculture and saline-alkali land resources.①For the new state-owned saline-alkali land, development by the country and government and operation by market-leading is the suitable improvement measure;②For the stock state-owned saline-alkali land, on the premise of respect for the willingness of farm households, the government-leading in combination with market is right;③For the new collective saline-alkali land, the development and operation should adopt the village collective organizations-leading mode;④For the stock collective saline-alkali land, the national project combined with the village collective organizations leading is efficient with the agricultural subsidy, credit support, agricultural insurance for the purpose of the sustainable land use. On the base of the above all, the optimized scheme and security system were established from the aspects of the development of saline-alkali land resources, agriculture operation and land resource protection in Kenli county, Zhenlai county and Chabuchaer county differently.