Farmers' responses to land transfer under the household responsibility system in Chongqing (China): a case study

Abstract

Chinese farmers are traditionally family-centered in their thinking and behavior and are passionately attached to their land. In a market economy, farmers are the principal agents in agricultural land use, and are directly involved in the allocation of land resources. In the present study, we intended to acquire reasonable interpretations of land transfer under the household responsibility system (HRS) from the perspective of the farmers and identify the underlying driving forces affecting rural land transfer in China. Using a large data set gathered in household surveys conducted in Chongqing from December 2003 to April 2005, this paper examines some important aspects of agricultural land use under HRS, illustrates the present status of the development of land transfer market and describes the responses of the farm households to contract land transfer in the sampling villages. The total area of land transfer varies considerably across the sampling villages. The scope of land transfer shows a striking inter-regional heterogeneity. The general trend is that the rate of land transfer is higher in the Yuxi economic corridor than in the metropolitan area, which, in turn, has a higher transfer rate than the Three Gorges economic zone. The ratio of the area of transferred land to the total area of household contract land shows a similar trend. Gradually, the mode of subcontracting has been accepted and adopted by the local farmers, and the modes of land renting and alienation in exchange of cash are beginning to appeal to some of the households. Land renting, or leasing, which terminates the original contract relations of the household with the village, is the chief form of land transfer in the metropolitan area, while most farm households in the Yuxi economic corridor and the Three Gorges economic zone prefer the form of subcontracting, which does not terminate the original contract relations. The responses of land use patterns and land use environment to land transfer are noticeable in the sampling villages. Most of the transferred farmland in the metropolitan area is allotted to non-agricultural uses. In the Yuxi economic corridor and the Three Gorges economic zone, only a small portion of the transferred land is used for non-agricultural uses and the intensiveness of land use is enhanced for most of it without major changes in land cover. A household survey shows that the conditions of land tenure control the scope of land transfer without great inter-regional variation. The degree of development of the rural land market not only impacts the scope of land transfer in the region, but also constitutes the fundamental causes for the inter-regional variation in land transfer scope and in the evolution of transfer modes. Social security plays a decisive role in whether the farmers are willing to quit farming and in what way they will quit farming. Management of land transfer, which includes rights security management and land use management after the transfer, is essential for standardizing the behavior of the principal agents in land transfer, for reducing disputes in transfer and ensuring the smooth proceeding of land transfer according to law. Understanding the psychology of the farm households under the changing macroeconomic environment and their responses to the driving factors for land transfer is of tremendous significance to the establishment of a market law-abiding and human-oriented system for land transfer in China.