A Study Of Factors Influencing Rural Households’Participation In Farmland Consolidation

As an important way to coordinate man-land relationship and optimize the land resources, farmland consolidation (FC) has played an important role in replenishing and protecting arable land, raising the overall production capacity of agriculture, ensuring food supplies and protecting ecological security. However, there are many problems need to be resolved without hesitation in FC at present. For example, the efficiency of FC project is very low, the project funds are not managed strictly and the regulation is not in place. The question is attributable to a variety of factors, but the lack of effective rural households participating and surveillance mechanism is the main reason. Effective participation of rural households in FC can make the decision-making process more democratic and scientific, and on the other, it can better supervise government conduct and protect the interests of rural households. So bring the rural households’enthusiasm of participating in FC has important sense to promoting efficiency of FC.The paper takes four counties of Hubei and Hunan province as an example, has analysed the current situation of rural households’participation in FC and use the Binary Logistic Regression Model and Ordinal Logistic Regression Model to take the empirical analysis of factors influencing rural households’willingness and the their participation degree in FC. Then we get the following conclusions:(1) Rural households’cognition of FC policy needs to be strengthened. The degree of rural households’satisfaction with the FC is not high. In the research area,72.96%rural households have a little understood for FC policy. And most rural households learn the policy and information of FC though the village cadres or TV.88.45%rural households recognize FC, but most rural households are unsatisfied with FC project.(2) The rural households have an intense desire to participate in the FC. In the research area, there are355rural households.71.27%rural households want to participate in the FC, while the other28.73%don’t.(3) Rural households’participation degree in FC is low. We find that the average participation degree of rural households is0.29, at the level of "relative low".40.28%rural households’participation degree is at level of "very low",29.86%rural households’ participation degree is at level of "relative low",19.15%rural households’participation degree is at level of "medium", only10.70%rural households’participation degree is at level of "relative high" (4) Qualitative analysis has showed that rural households’ enthusiasm of participating in FC is influenced by a variety of factors and the influence direction is different. According to the qualitative analysis, the influence direction of the age of household’s head, the labour of a family, the proportion of agricultural income and village economy development level to households’ enthusiasm is uncertain. The educaion of household’s head, village cadres or not, households’ cultivated area, intention of land transfer, market prospect of agricultural products, price satisfaction of agricultural products, village cadres’ attitude to the FC, the construction subsidy of FC, right adjustment of FC, information Openness of FC project, households’ understanding of working procedure of FC and the definition of the power and responsibility of FC have a positive impact on households’ enthusiasm of participating in FC. The proportion of non-agricultural labour, arable land crushing degree and increase sources of income in the surrounding area have a negative impact on households’ enthusiasm of participating in FC.(5)The empirical analysis shows that the influence of most of these factors on households’ enthusiasm of participating in FC is consistent with qualitative analysis.①Factors that affect households’ participating willingness are listed according to the significant level:The proportion of non-agricultural labour, the recognization degree of rural households about FC, households’ cultivated area, regional differences, irrigation and machinery input costs, the proportion of agricultural income and village cadres or not. The proportion of non-agricultural labour and the proportion of agricultural income have a negative impact on households’ participating willingness, while other factors have a positive impact.②Factors that affect households’ participation degree in FC are listed according to the significant level:village cadres or not, households’ cultivated area, the construction subsidy of FC, the definition of the power and responsibility of FC, regional differences, village cadres’ attitude to the FC, the educaion of household’s head, arable land crushing degree, irrigation and machinery input costs, village economy development level, the degree of farmers’ satisfaction with the FC and households’ understanding of working procedure of FC. Arable land crushing degree and village economy development level have a negative impact on households’ participation degree in FC, while other factors have a positive impact.Therefore, in order to bring the rural households’ enthusiasm of participating in FC, government should do better in the following aspects. Firstly, government should enhance propaganda and help farmers form a correct cognition of FC. Secondly, government should guarantee the FC project quality in order to enhance the households’degree of satisfaction about FC. Thirdly, effective rural households participating and surveillance mechanism should be established.Government should scientificly guide rural households to participate in FC. Fourthly, speed up the legal construction of public participation in FC. Fifthly, we have to actively develop the circulation of cultivated land and promote the land management in moderate scale. Finally, we shall improve the organization of rural communities and train the village cadres who combine ability with political integrity.