Research on the Scale of Agricultural Land Moderate Management and Countermeasures Based on Farm Household Analysis

Xin Yan,Guang Yang,Fadong Li,Yuejian Wang,Na Liao

doi:10.3390/su131910591

Abstract

The scale of agricultural land management was scientifically measured to provide a theoretical reference for improving the efficiency of agricultural land utilization, optimizing the industrial structure, and effectively solving the “three rural problems”. Based on 368 microfarmers’ agricultural land management questionnaire responses, the Cobb–Douglas production function was used to measure the average household size in different zones of Shawan City, Xinjiang, and then to calculate the total scale of moderate management in the region, and to divide the supplementary and reduced zones of arable land. The proposed countermeasures and suggestions for achieving the scale of moderate management from the perspectives of both people and land are presented. The results show the following: (1) the average suitable operating scales of households in the hilly area, the agricultural area in the oasis plain, and the oasis–desert interlace area were 5.15, 9.28, and 7.74 ha, respectively. (2) The moderate total scales of operation in the low hilly area, the middle oasis plain agricultural area, and the lower oasis–desert ecotone were 60,380, 112,510, and 115,500 ha, respectively. (3) Two areas, the low mountainous and hilly areas and the oasis plain farming areas, are supplementary areas of arable land, which should be supplemented by improving the management capacity of farmers, cultivating two new agricultural business entities, increasing land transfers, developing modern agriculture, and reducing the degree of fragmentation of arable land. The oasis–desert staggered area is the area where the scale of arable land is reduced. We should vigorously implement the work of retreating land and reducing water, and guide farmers to engage in secondary and tertiary industries so as to reduce the scale of arable land.

Highlights

The Cobb–Douglas production function was combined with land, labor, and capital factors in agricultural production, and a certain modification was made to build and capital factors in agricultural production, and a certain modification was made to the following model
According to the actual survey data, the local actual situation, and the data required by the sample, the values that did not meet the requirements were deleted, and the data required by the function were sorted by partition and classification, as follows: Y, L, and
Based on the research data of 368 farmers, this paper used the Cobb–Douglas production function to calculate the appropriate scale of agricultural land and the total scale of moderate management in the upstream low hill area, the midstream oasis plain area, and the downstream oasis–desert interlacing area in Shawan City, and drew the following conclusions

Summary

Introduction

In the context of building a moderately prosperous society in a well-rounded way, the production and management goals of farmers gradually move from solving the problem of food and clothing to solving the problem of increasing income [1], and it has become inevitable to change from the traditional smallholder production mode to large-scale operation [2,3]. The scale of agricultural land firstly improves its utilization rate by concentrating it to reduce the area of ridges and ditches and avoid wastage; secondly, the scale of agricultural land facilitates mechanized production, saves costs, and increases the income of farmers, stabilizing agricultural development [4,5,6]. Sustainability 2021, 13, 10591 land is not the larger the better. There is always a moderate scale of agricultural land operation, so that the factors (labor, land, capital, and technology) invested by the production and operation units are optimally allocated and the economic profit generated by the agricultural land is the largest, and this scale is the moderate scale of agricultural land operation [7,8,9,10]

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion