| The compensation policy for farmland conservation,which is based on economic incentives,has proven to be an effective approach to achieve the internalization of externalities existing in farmland protection.Taking into consideration both fairness and efficiency,the compensation policy has been widely adopted as an useful measure to resolve current dilemma of farmland conservation in China(Qu and Zhu 2008,Chen et al2010,Cai and Zhang 2010,Yuan et al 2010,Li et al 2012).Since 2008,there are attempts to conduct the policy experiments for farmland protection in multiple cities across the country including Chengdu,Shanghai,Dongguan,Foshan,Suzhou and so forth.Currently some developed cities in seventeen provinces have established or began to explore the local experimentation with the compensation policy.To further optimize and improve the compensation policy,it is of importance to conduct post-effect assessment.As a policy tool for principal-agent relationship and benefit gambling among government,rural community and farm households,the compensation policy demonstrates the characteristics of spatial differentiation because of variations in regional resource endowments,economic development,public awareness,movement of production factors,and so on.To provide references and policy recommendations to optimize the compensation policy,boost the local practices to institutional level,and improve land management,it is crucial to revel the spatial differentiation of in the policy implementation effects and initially identify the relatively effective regions and models.Inspired by the successful practice and policy in American and European countries,this paper studies typical cases of Chengdu,Suzhou and Guangdong to analyze the spatial differentiation of implementation effects of compensation policy for farmland conservation.Thereinto,Guangdong province is the first to carry out the differential compensation policy.The differences of farmers’ compensation rely on the area development with high payment in developed areas and low payment in relatively underdeveloped regions,in September 2012 in its provincial area on the basis of pilot exploration experience in Foshan,Dongguan and Guangzhou.Chengdu city is the first to adopt incentive-based farmland protection schemes in 2008.Nevertheless,the farmland protection fund program of Chengdu does not indicate immediate economic compensation to farmers in exchange for their cooperation to protect farmland.Instead,local farmers are paid with pension and agricultural insurance subsidies as forms of compensation.The Suzhou government releases several documents in 2010 to promote eco-compensation programs in rural areas.The scheme not only covers prime farmland but also headwater areas,wetlands and forests.The goal aims to encourage peasants and agricultural villages to protect local farmland,preserve the ecological functions of farm and reduce the fragmentation of rural land.The data mainly comes from statistical material issued by the official website and from field surveys conducted in three selected regions,i.e.,Chengdu,Suzhou and Wuhan,from 2012 to 2017.From multi-scale and multi-model perspectives,we compare the implementation effects before and after the policy,with and without the policy,or compare the implementation effects through the differences between the control and treatment group.In specific,this paper uncovers the regional diversities of implementation effects in differential regions.By comparing the implementation effects of various compensation models with quasi-experimental tests,we use choice experiment(CE)model to explore farmer preference of the policy.According to the statistical panel data,we employ regression and difference-indifference(DID)models to explore the regional diversities of implementation effects among different cities,countries and towns from multi-dimensional scales and recognize their spatial characteristics.The results and policy recommendations are as follows:(1)The innovative policies show positive effects in preserving farmland and help increase farmer’s income in typical areas.First,the farmland losses have been successfully suppressed at city,county and town after the policy.The average farmland losses of each city in Guangdong,each county in Chengdu and each town in Suzhou after the policy are 3191.65,4625.74 and 74.79 hectares lower than those before the policy.Second,the cash compensation policy can effectively improve farmer’s income.Specifically,the average increment of farmers’ income for each city in Guangdong and each town in Suzhou is 235.49 and 1259.59 RMB higher than that before the policy,respectively.(2)The implementation effects are divergent in different regions.First,the regions with sufficient farmland resources and developed agricultural economy can help suppress the farmland losses.After the policy,the farmland areas in these regions are increased by14304.12,3843.20 and 7254 hectares,respectively.By contrast,the developed regions with high compensation rate of farmland ecological value fail to inhibit the farmland losses.The farmland areas in these regions are decreased by 3974.47,1325.14 and 6387 hectares after the policy.Second,the compensation in developed areas demonstrate positive influences on farmers’ income.In these regions,the cash payment significantly increases farmers’ government transfer income to stimulate farmers to participate in land transfer-out and work in non-agricultural affairs.Consequently,the farmers in developed regions gain more opportunities in seeking for non-agricultural jobs.In the process of policy improvement,a differentiated compensation model should be formulated based on current status of policy implementation and economic development level to improve the effectiveness of policies.Specifically,the local government should strengthen the controls of land use and planning regulations in economically developed regions,while increase the compensation funds in economically underdeveloped areas.According to the survey data from farmers,non-parametric test and propensity score matching(PSM)are used to compare the implementation effects of compensation policies for different models,and the three-stage nested Theil decomposition method is used to measure the spatial differentiations of compensation policies within-village,between-village,between-town and between-county.The results and policy suggestions are as follows:(1)The compensation policy has effectively stimulated farmers’ enthusiasm toward farmland protection,increased their policy satisfaction and greatly encouraged farmer participation in farmland protection and land transfer-out.Compared to Wuhan,which does not take farmland compensation policy and has similar economic development,we find out that the differences of knowledge of farmers in Suzhou and Wuhan do not pass the significant test.In addition,the knowledge of farmers in Chengdu on farmland function is 9.07% higher,the farmland protection enthusiasm of farmers in Chengdu and Suzhou is 22.42% and 14.72% higher,and participation rates of land transfer-out of farmers in Chengdu and Suzhou are 44.80% and 186.99% higher,respectively.Second,in Suzhou City,farmer policy satisfaction,enthusiasm toward farmland protection and participation rate of land transfer-out have increased by 13.45%,25.56% and 27.24%from 2012 to 2015.In Chengdu City,farmers’ knowledge about farmland function,policy satisfaction,enthusiasm toward farmland protection and participation rate of land transfer-out have been improved by 8.52%,22.75%,0.66% and 57.61% from 2012 to2015,respectively.(2)Different compensation models show diverse policy effect.The Chengdu model characterized by a combination of pension insurance and agricultural insurance benefits performs better than the Suzhou model in enhancing farmers’ knowledge on farmland function,arising enthusiasm toward farmland protection and lifting their policy satisfaction.However,the Suzhou model outperforms the Chengdu model in encouraging farmers to participate in farmland transfer-out.The values of enthusiasm about farmland protection and policy satisfaction in 2015 in Chengdu are 7.20% and 12.49% higher than that in Suzhou,but the farmer participation rate of land transfer-out is 43.27% lower than that in Suzhou.(3)The same compensation model functions differently in different cities and villages.First,farmers in agriculturally developed areas know more about farmland function and show higher policy satisfaction and more enthusiasm to participate in farmland protection,while farmers in economically developed areas are more optimistic about the policy permanence.Farmers’ policy satisfaction in Chongzhou located at the outer suburbs of Chengdu is 1.06%,0.42% and 5.55% higher than that in Shuangliu which belongs to developed area in 2012,2015 and 2017.Farmers’ enthusiasm towards farmland protection in Chongzhou is 6.93%,2.20% and 4.94% higher than that in Shuangliu,respectively.While the values of policy permanence in 2015 and 2017 in Shuangliu are 2.03% and 0.24% higher than those in Chongzhou.Second,we propose spatial decomposition at county,town and village levels.The relationships among different spatial differentiations in Chengdu are as follows: differentiation of within-village variation> differentiation of between-village variation> differentiation of between-town variation> differentiation of between-county variation.Thereinto,the within-village contributes 87.63% of the total variation.We observe that the spatial differentiation mainly comes from within-village variation.Thus,to improve compensation fund use and policy effectiveness,the local government should formulate precise and differentiated compensation policy which fully takes farmer heterogeneity into account.To provide references about the compensation policy,we utilize CE model to collect the survey data to explore farmer policy preferences.The results and policy suggestions are as follows:The results demonstrate that the farmer households show clear interests in compensation policy.They prefer to obtain more subsidy payment taking on more farmland protection responsibilities.Meanwhile,they focus more on the compensation subject design of policy.In specific,54.50% of farmers in Shuangliu,72.20% of farmers in Chongzhou and 69.80% farmers in Pengzhou are willing to obtain higher subsidies and take on more farmland protection responsibilities accordingly.Farmers in different types of regions all value the attributes of the requisitioned subject.The source of heterogeneity preference for the requisitioned subject is greatly affected by the education degree of the household,the distance to the town,the area of family-owned farmland,and the annual household income.In the future design and optimization of compensation policy,it is necessary to change current “government-led top-down” and “all farmers’ passive participation” practice models,with the consideration of farmers’ interests,and attach importance to farmers’ participation to increase their participation and intrinsic motivation for farmland protection. |
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