The Impact Of Labor Transfer On Agricultural Land Use As Rural Household Perspective

A multitude of factors, tremendous urbanization after the economic reforms of1978,particularly large scale transformation of agricultural labor force to non-agricultural laborforce and rural to urban migration have resulted in industrial growth and shaken thedynamics of Chinese cityscape. Jianghan plain and hilly regions of Hubei province havebeen selected for this study which contains10villages and39counties. Through thesynthesis of qualitative research and empirical findings, study further explores the factorsaffecting the transformation of agricultural labor force into non agricultural labor inJianghan plain and hilly regions and their impact on agricultural land use.Firstly, the study illustrates spatio-temporal features of agricultural labor forcetransformation in the selected regions and finds how this transformation is affecting theagriculture land use change and development.During1990to2011, the findings of the study show that number of hilly areaagricultural labor force declining at large scale and with continuous declining trend whileon the other hand, the results show the inverting situation in Jianghan plain and marksU-shaped curve regarding agricultural labor force transformation the selected region. Inaddition, the Jianghan plain and hilly areas of Hubei province are rendering thethreatening problem of ageing in agricultural labor force along with low literacy rate,although rate of literacy in Jianghan and industrial is comparatively higher than the hillyregions of the selected area.Secondly, econometric model has been employed to empirically study and analyzethe impact of agricultural land use input desires in the study area. As results of the studyindicate that labor type, labor age and labor gender directly and significantly affectagricultural land use input desires while the study found indirect significant effect oncultivating purposes and employment intensions. Further results of empirical analysisshow that level literacy affects the farmer’s cultivating input desires significantly and assaid before cultivating purposes and employment intensions significantly but indirectlyeffect this transformation especially in Jianghan plain. Through the synthesis and econometric analysis, the findings of the research showthat there is a distinctive and unbalanced transformation of agricultural labor forcebetween hilly and plain regions. As farmers of the hilly regions are moving towards theplains, although this excessive transformation of agricultural labor force provides suitableconditions for agricultural development in plain area, as in Jianghan plain, on the otherhand, this transformation is alarming situation for sustainable farming in hilly regions.