Regional Differences On Farmland Transfer And Their Impact On Agro-ecosystems

At the begging of reform and opening up, the household contract responsibility system in rural areas has greatly liberated the productive forces, and mobilized their enthusiasm for production, promote the comprehensive development of agricultural productivity and rural economy. But with the establishment of the socialist market economic system and accelerate the process of integration of urban and rural areas, "self-sufficiency" management mode has been difficult to meet the modern needs of agricultural development and agricultural transformation, its restraining effect on the development of rural economy growing appeared. In this context, countries in recent years through a series of policies and measures to guide and encourage qualified areas to carry out the transfer of farmland. But by the level of socio-economic development, regional resource endowments, topography, urbanization, rural labor transfer degree, and many other factors, there is a big difference in farmland transfer characteristics, mode, extent and effect in different areas. Therefore, analysis of farmland transfer characteristic in different areas, scientific evaluation of different farmland transfer effect on the local conditions has important and practical significance to develop differentiated farmland transfer policy, scientific and rational guide farmland transfer effectively circulation. Based on this, we select the Rongchang, on behalf of the hilly area, and Guanghan, on behalf of the plain area as the object of study. And on the basis of many investigations from the perspective of farmers, comparative analysis was carried out on famers behavior, family characteristics and the features of households. Emergy analysis can then apply for transfer of farmland ecological effects were evaluated objectively. Through research, this paper gets the following conclusions:(1) The differences of farmland transfer are significant affecting by the regional topography, land location, basic conditions for agricultural production, supporting policies and other factors. Farmland plots location, basic conditions for agricultural production and supporting measures in Guanghan are superior to these in Rongchang, and the effect of farmland transfer is better than Rongchang area. In size and speed, by the end of 2014, a farmland area of 5.88 million mu in Guanghan was transferred, the farmland transfer ratio was more than 70% and in the past five years the average annual growth rate of farmland transfer reached 73.14%; while Rongchang area reaches 40.94 mu and farmland transfer ratio was 47.50%. In terms of farmland transfer form, there are lease, shares, subcontract, transfer, exchange, etc. both in Guanghan and Rongchang, but the advanced form of lease, share in Guanghan are dominant position, accounting for all types of circulation in the form of 66.16%, while Rongchang area to lease, subcontract, accounting for nearly 90% of all types of transfer form; in terms of farmland transfer body, farmland transfer subject to farming experts, farmers’ cooperatives, associations, leading enterprises in Guanghan, while Rongchang is mainly dominated by the farmers; as for industrial development in agriculture, the phenomenon of "loss the grain" is of serious in Rongchang area after the transfer, before and the planting proportion of grain and oil increased from 52.72% down to 15.13% after the transfer, while it remained above 50% in Guanghan.(2) Behavioral characteristics between farmers and households having significant regional differences. Affected by area terrain, local economic development and the opportunities of off-farm employment factors, the farmers took a higher proportion of farmland transfer in Guanghan and full roll-out family accounted for 73.89%, while the proportion of Rongchang accounted for 67.71%. In terms of willingness to roll-out farmland,89.73% of respondents in Rongchang are intended to be transferred out of their farmland, higher than that in Guanghan at 85.03%. In terms of years of farmland transferred, Guanghan has flat terrain, fertile land, good basis of agricultural conditions, well-developed market of farmland transfer, and farmers recognized the value of farmland is high, as farmers tend to short-term transfer to get higher rents,51.59% of the farmers agreed at 0-5 years, more than half of the farmers hope long-term circulation in Rongchang,54.56% of the farmers agreed at 10-20 years. Analysis of households’characteristics indicate a greater scale of transferred farmland happened in Guanghan, size of 100 to 500 mu took 27.66% of the total, while Rongchang area is 20.59%. As for the type of transferred farmland, paddy fields was the main type in Guanghan, while dry land in the Rongchang. The price of transfer in Guanghan was generally higher than that in Rongchang. Guanghan paddy transfer price was generally between 800 yuan-1200 yuan/mu, Rongchang area was between 400-800 yuan/mu; dry land transfer price was generally between 400-800 yuan/mu in Guanghan, and the Rongchang area was less than 400 yuan. In the agricultural industry, Guanghan operated the main business of grain and oil and vegetables, while Rongchang had main business of vegetable and culture.(3) The mode of operation significant changed and regional differences are remarkable. Around the city of Guanghan, the labor input per unit of land was down to 0.09 persons/mu from 0.36 person/mu, per unit of land of capital inputs increased from 854.94 yuan/mu to 1066.44 yuan/mu; around Rongchang area, the labor input per unit of land was down to 0.17 persons/mu from 0.52/mu, per unit of land of capital inputs increased from 1173.34 yuan/mu to 3085.97 yuan/mu. Before and after the transfer of farmland in the study area, labor input and capital inputs changes a lot, and the changes in agricultural machinery input and infrastructure input were more prominent, agricultural machinery input in the plain area (293.47 yuan/mu) was significantly greater than the infrastructure investment (85.79 yuan/mu), infrastructure investment in the hill area (654.96 yuan/mu) was significantly greater than the machinery input (58.80 yuan/mu).(4) Farmland transfer had effects on agro-ecosystems significantly in research area, leading to differences in capacity for sustainable development on a regional. ① The structure of inputs changed significantly after transfer of farmland. Before the transfer of farmland, the main purchase inputs in Rongchang included manpower, feed and fertilizer, accounting for 88.10%,2.23% and 1.46% of the total energy value respectively; the main purchase inputs in Guanghan included manpower, fertilizer and mechanical, respectively, accounting for 90.05%,2.81% and 2.24% of the total energy value.After the transfer, main purchase inputs in Rongchang included manpower, feed, construction costs and breeding, accounting for 42.13%,17.60%,17.26% and 9.34% of the total investment; main purchase inputs in Guanghan included manpower, machinery and fertilizer, accounting for 42.75%,16.51% and 8.02% of the total energy value. ② Transfer of farmland improved the efficiency of agricultural production, enhance the market competitiveness of agricultural products. After the transfer of farmland, due to the reduce of the level of input and the increase of system output, the emergy yield ratio(EYR) increased by 181.25% in Rongchang area; due to reduced level of input, the emergy yield ratio(EYR) had an increase of 366.67% in Guanghan, particularly the machinery replaced manpower largely played a key role. ③ Transfer of farmland increased the pressure on the ecological environment, but caused different effects of development sustainable at the regional. Transfer of farmland caused environmental loading ratio(ELO) in Rongchang agro-ecosystem increased by 438.89%, the rate in Guanghan agro-ecosystems has increased 363.16%, indicating a greater ecological pressure on the transfer of farmland in hilly region caused. After the transfer, pesticides and fertilizers and other capital was used of excessive, lead to the emergy sustainability index(ESI) fell 48.31% in Rongchang area. On the other hand, the scale of operation in Guanghan made pesticides and fertilizers reduced, and promoting efficiency of agricultural production by increasing the agricultural mechanization input made emergy sustainability index(ESI) improved 3.17% in Guanghan. Farmland transfer weakened the capacity for sustainable development of their agro-ecosystems in Rongchang, and consolidated their agricultural ecosystems sustainable development in Guanghan.Therefore, in the process of transformation of agricultural development mode, considering the regional natural endowment, geographic conditions and agricultural resources, large-scale, intensive, and mechanized production mode was scientific and feasible in plain are. However, this mode does not fully applicable to the hilly area, the development of ecological agriculture and the circular agricultural may be more appropriate to hilly area.