Study On The Influence Of Livelihood Capital And Income Quality On The Scale Of Land Transfer Of Farm Households

As the core of agricultural and rural farmers’ issues,land is not only an important guarantee for the production and livelihood of our farmers,but also the material basis for the modernisation of agriculture and rural areas in China.As an important way to modernise agriculture and rural development,land transfer is of significant significance in promoting the stable and orderly development of the rural economy and achieving healthy and sustainable high-quality agricultural development.However,as land market reform enters deeper waters,the situation of small-scale land management has not yet changed significantly,and the incidence of land transfer is still low overall,the growth rate of land transfer has slowed down,and the quality of land transfer has been relatively limited.Therefore,it is inevitable to further explore how to increase the scale of land transfer in this social context.This study takes ordinary farmers in the middle and upper reaches of the Yellow River Basin as the research object to investigate how farmers’ livelihood capital and income quality affect the scale of land transfer.Firstly,we define the concepts of livelihood capital,income quality and land transfer,and elaborate the theoretical basis of livelihood capital and income quality affecting land transfer from the perspectives of rational smallholder theory,sustainable livelihood theory and land property rights theory,and propose the corresponding influence mechanism in the light of the actual situation of farmers and land in the study area.On this basis,we obtained micro-farm household data by participating in the special research on "ecological protection and high-quality development of agriculture and rural areas in the Yellow River Basin" in 2020,and excluded samples of livestock,forestry and fishery production and some samples with missing important information,and obtained 1263 valid farm household samples.After that,the structural equation model was constructed by Amos software,and the mediating effect of income quality on land transfer was analyzed by Bootstrap method.Then all samples were grouped according to regional differences,income strata,and farming status,and the heterogeneous characteristics of farmers’ land switching behavior were further explored by using structural equation modeling.Finally,based on the different influence paths of each factor,relevant suggestions for optimizing land transfer are proposed from multiple perspectives in a targeted manner.The main findings are as follows:(1)Among the direct effects of livelihood capital on the scale of land transfer out,the increase in the level of human capital and social capital can effectively promote farmers’ land transfer out,and the increase in the level of natural capital,physical capital and financial capital can hinder farmers’ land transfer out.Among the indirect effects of livelihood capital on the scale of land transfer out,human capital,physical capital,financial capital,and social capital indirectly affect land transfer out through income quality,and the mediating effects of the influence path of natural capital on the scale of land transfer out are not significant.(2)Under the influence of geographical location,industrial conditions and local sentiment,the influence path of farm households’ land transfer out differs in different contexts.The mediating effect of farm household income quality on the influence path of human capital on the scale of land transfer is higher in the western region than in the northern and central regions,and there is a mediating effect of farm household income quality between natural capital and land transfer in the northern region;the mediating effect of social capital is not significant in the low-income group of farm households,while there is a mediating effect of farm household income quality between natural capital and land transfer in the low-income group and middle-income group.The mediating effect of social capital in the effect of livelihood capital on the scale of land transfer is insignificant in the group of pure farmers and part-time farmers,and the mediating effect of financial capital in the effect of livelihood capital on the scale of land transfer in the group of pure farmers is also insignificant.Based on the analysis of the research results,this paper proposes specific optimisation strategies in terms of improving the employment skills of farmers,improving the information service platform and enhancing the ability of farmers to participate in land transfer,in order to provide a scientific basis for increasing the scale of land transfer and realising "the best use of people and the best use of land".