Evaluation Of Farmland Consolidation Effect Based On Production,Living And Space

During the evolving process of farmland consolidation works in the countries worldwide,farmland consolidation shows the trends of pursuing multiple goals,diverse functions and suitable pattern to local situations.In recent years,China has invested a large amount of money on farmland consolidation projects.Farmland consolidation are integrated with agriculture modernization,new countryside construction,ecological civilization and etc.In fact,farmland consolidation is regarded as an important tool to coordinate the relationship between human and earth.The goals of farmland consolidation include increasing the amount of cultivated land,improving the quality of cultivated land,improving farmland infrastructure and increasing agricultural production capacity.Farmland consolidation also plays an important role on improving the living environment of farmers and strengthening ecological protection.To fulfill the goals of constructing beautiful rural villages,it is important to re-examine the effectiveness and limitations of the current farmland consolidation.It also needs to seek for new requirements and new methods of farmland consolidation to simultaneously boost the harmonious development of agricultural production,farmers’ life and rural ecology(called as the “Sansheng” in Chinese hereafter).Based on extensive literature research,in the traditional methods using weighted overlay evaluation from one or more aspects,such as economic and social and ecological benefits,are proved ineffective to assess the effects of farmland consolidation.So,to achieve healthy and sustainable development of farmland consolidation,we need to make some changes and form a comprehensive and continuous assessing process based on "awareness-monitoring-reflection" mechanism.based on the theories of “Sansheng”,we can provide a new perspective and methodology to assess farmland consolidation by optimizing the evaluation perspectives and methods.Starting from this,this paper chooses three typical farmland consolidation projects in Rongchang District of Chongqing Municipality according to the differences of the impacts of farmland consolidation on Sansheng.This paper has established an integrated index system to study the impacts of farmland consolidation on Sansheng,using quantitative and qualitative analysis and empirical analysis.My research is expected to provide effective methods and valuable solutions to farmland consolidation.1)By reshaping the elements of mountain,water,field,forest and road in rural areas,farmland consolidation can help to improve rural agriculture production,farmers’ life and rural ecology.First,farmland consolidation can directly improve the basic conditions of agricultural production,speeding up the circulation of agricultural land,and change the mode of agricultural production;Second,land consolidation can increase the farmers income,transform their lifestyle into non-agricultural forms,and make them be satisfied with their lives;Third,farmland consolidation can beautify the farmland landscape and corridor landscape,and enhance the ability of agricultural disaster prevention and control,thus increasing the stability of rural ecosystems.2)Farmland consolidation can help to promote modern agricultural production for business.Farmland consolidation can optimize the basic conditions of agricultural production,speeding up the circulation of farmland transfer,improve agricultural production efficiency and modernization.After the farmland consolidation,the amount of arable land increase significantly.Its growth from large to small was YD-Ⅱ(13.27%)>YD-Ⅲ(10.91%)>YD-Ⅰ(3.91%).The quality of cultivated land was increased to rich and high quality levels.At the same time,the infrastructures such as roads and ditches have been improved,although there are differences in terms of the quantity,spatial layout and material uses of infrastructures in different rural areas.In order to pursue scale economy,the speed of farmland transfer became faster.The ratio of transferred farmland to the total farmland was YD-Ⅲ(8.49%)>YD-Ⅱ(5.69%)>YD-Ⅰ(3.15%)in a descending trend.The rental price of transferred farmland grew by 100-200 yuan.Thus some farmers are willing to transfer their farmland to others for the benefits.With the optimization of agricultural production conditions and the increase of farmland transfers,the scale of farmland for some households grew rapidly.The number of farmers with a small scale of farmland(less than 0.17 hm2)decreased;and the number of farmers with a large scale of farmland(more than 0.17hm2)increased as an opposite trend.At the same time,the input of agricultural production correspondingly increased by about 10%.Stimulated by comparative benefit,the planting structure of crops on farmlands changed as indicated from the increase of farmland used for high value-added vegetable cultivation.3)Farmland consolidation promoted the transformation of farmer lifestyle and livelihood in the project areas.With the improvement of agricultural production capacity,the income of farmers increased significantly.A large number of surplus rural labor forces moved out the villages for high-salary jobs.And the non-agricultural farmers increased significantly.Farmers were satisfied and feel happy with the change of living conditions.After consolidation,income of farmers grew with less or more degrees.The growth of agricultural income was YD-Ⅱ(449)>YD-Ⅰ(243)>YD-Ⅲ(207)in a descending trend,and non-farm income growth was YD-Ⅲ(2844)>YD-Ⅱ(1662)>YD-Ⅰ(1205)in a descending trend.Due to the transform of farmland scale and mode,a mass of rural labor forces were released from rural villages and relocated to the remote coast areas or the nearby big cities.In the meanwhile,migrant farmers who do not engage in farming increased.Farmers who only engage in agricultural farming reduced.Farmers who engage in farming and non-farming at spare time increased.Through the survey and evaluation of the satisfaction of farmers,farmers who feel with very satisfied,moderately satisfied,satisfied and unsatisfied,are 26:45:19:10,29:41:20:10,24:40:21:15,indicating a high satisfaction.4)Farmland consolidation enhanced the ecological landscape patterns and the stability of the local ecosystem in the project areas.Farmland consolidation not only optimizated farmland and corridor landscape,but also improved the aesthetic values of rural landscape through a series of engineering and biological measures.Meanwhile,these measures prevented agricultural disasters,securitized agricultural production and stabilized rural ecological system.Farmland consolidation decreased land fragmentation and complexity.Landscape of land leveling help to improve rural landscape through merging small farmland patches into big ones,and reshaping farmland pattern.At the same time,farmland consolidation improved corridor landscape through constructing rural roads and irrigation and water conservancy facilities.The corridor network characteristics of each study area generally improved except for a few areas,This reflected that the reasonable layout was the key to optimize the corridor landscape.Considering the situations of hilly region,the construction of rural roads and ditches must be meet the actual needs and realize the optimization corridor landscape.With the optimization of rural ecological landscape,the ability of disaster prevention was also strengthened.5)The evaluation method based on matter element model could be applied to the evaluation of farmland consolidation.The comprehensive effect of farmland consolidation in each study area were good.The livelihood effect and ecological effect were not as significant as production effect.However,the “Sansheng” effect need to be further optimized in the future.The results showed that the production grades of YD-Ⅰ,YD-Ⅱ and YD-Ⅲ were respectively good,excellent,and excellent.The livelihood grades of them were respectively medium,good and good.The ecological grades of them were respectively good,medium and medium.And the comprehensive effect evaluation grades of them were all good.The type of YD-Ⅰtook some pertinent measures in order to repair fragile ecology,so its ecological effect is good;but it lacks of measures to promote production and life effect.The type of YD-Ⅱaimed to build the high standard grain and oil production base,so the production effect is excellent;However,it need to improve the life of farmers and ecological situations.The type of YD-III had a significant geographical advantage on agriculture and social economy.After the consolidation,the production effect and life effect were all excellent,compared with a poor ecological effect.To summarize,the coordination of “Sansheng” effect in every sample regions need to be optimized.For sake of the harmonious development of “Sansheng”,we should improve the basic conditions of agricultural production,and take targeted measures of ecological consolidation as well.To sum up,facing the new historical demand of farmland consolidation,this paper studied the effect of farmland consolidation on agricultural production,farmers life and rural ecology and carried out the evaluation of farmland consolidation effects based on the theories of “Sansheng”.My research will not only enrich the research perspective of farmland consolidation evaluation,but also provide a useful reference for the development of farmland consolidation in hilly areas.