Rural economic benefits of land consolidation in mountainous and hilly areas of southeast China: Implications for rural development

Abstract

Abstract Land consolidation has become a massive organized activity and is widely implemented in rural areas. However, research remains somewhat scarce on the contributing mechanism of land consolidation with production factors to regional rural economies. In this study, we sampled 4710 land consolidation projects during the year of 2006–2016 and recorded their benefits to the rural economies within the project area, in the mountainous and hilly rural areas in Southeast China. A random forest (RF) model was used to explain the variation of rural economic indicators quantitatively and partition the relative importance of each factor from land consolidation projects. The results showed that land consolidation contributed to the promotion of rural economies. The R2 of the RF models were 66.55% (for grain production increment), 55.19% (for net agricultural income increment), 37.01% (for land rental income), and 42.60% (for labor income) respectively. Despite the direct input factors especially newly added cropland area and total investment of land consolidation project dominant across the study area, the most important factors varied over the years and across counties considerably. Noteworthily in specific years and several counties (e.g. those in the north of study area), factors reflecting technological efficiency such as the mechanized agricultural area and the land-leveling area could also make primary contribution to grain production increment and net agricultural income increment. Moreover, the marginal returns law and the scarcity of land resources in the mountainous and hilly areas were also suggested. The results revealed the significance of engineering measures for technological efficiency. The study highlights the importance of land consolidation to regional rural economies in mountainous and hilly areas, and provides valuable insights for promoting the efficiency of regional rural land consolidation arrangements in the future.