A company-dominated pattern of land consolidation to solve land fragmentation problem and its effectiveness evaluation: A case study in a hilly region of Guangxi Autonomous Region, Southwest China

Abstract

Since late 1970s, the implementation of the household contracted responsibility system (HCRS) has raised farmers’ enthusiasm for production and effectively enhanced China’s agricultural productivity. However, the absolutely equal distribution of quantity and quality of farmland has also resulted in the problem of land fragmentation, which has currently become a major obstacle to the realization of economy of scale and agricultural modernization. Land consolidation has traditionally been taken as a necessary approach for solving this problem. This study takes Long’an County of Guangxi Autonomous Region in Southwest China as a case study, to examine the effectiveness of a newly introduced company-dominated model for land consolidation. Contrasted to commonly-adopted government-dominated models, in this model a company would lease scattered farmlands from farmers, and carry out a land consolidation project to merge small plots into large plots, then use consolidated land for scale operation. In this whole process, local governments only play an assistant role by subsidizing the project and supervision. The evaluation results show that after land transfer and consolidation, farmland fragmentation degree in Langwan project area is effectively reduced, with the total number of plots decreasing from 1738 to 92 and the average plot size increasing from 0.11 to 2.00 ha, and plot shape tends to be enlarged and regular, which is conducive to large-scale and mechanized operation. Besides, agricultural infrastructure and soil quality are both improved, which facilitate the implementation and mechanization of field work, such as transportation, irrigation, tillage, pesticides and fertilizers application. The improvement of land productivity and government subsidy kindles entrepreneurial enthusiasm for investment and participation in agriculture, which promoted crop structure transformation from sugarcane to high value-added dragon fruit (pitaya), resulting in a great increase in profit from 5212.5 to 57,000 Yuan/ha/a. Meanwhile, local government can free themselves from the cumbersome work of project design, implementation and supervising scattered individuals. Farmers can also gain revenue from land leasing and employment opportunities on the field provided by the company. This new company-oriented model proves itself as a more efficient and effective approach of incentive-based middle-out strategy to deliver multi-agents, multi-goals benefits, which is in line with recent call for self-organized and collaborative resource governance, and can be extended to other regions and contribute to rural revitalization in China and other countries.