Spatial response of cultivated land use efficiency to the maize structural adjustment policy in the "Sickle Bend" region of China: An empirical study from the cold area of northeast

Abstract

The changing of regional cultivated land use efficiency (CLUE) plays an important role in understanding the agricultural policy effects. The implementation of the maize structural adjustment policy in the "Sickle Bend" region of China has significantly reduced the maize- growing area, which increases the scale of competitive crops and rotation-fallow. It is worth exploring the CLUE changes in the context of the policy response behavior, however, an in-depth study and discussion of the relationship between CLUE and agricultural supportive policy are currently scarce. Therefore, this study constructed a theoretical framework of the relationship between CLUE and the planting structural adjustment policy response, and we systematically sorted out the related policies of the Cold Area of Northeast in the "Sickle Bend" region of China, where selected the typical 17 counties (districts) as the study case. The Random Forest algorithm was used to measure the CLUE of the study area during the period 2013–2018, and static and dynamic spatial panel models were constructed respectively to analyze the CLUE changes before and after the maize structural adjustment policy implementation, and their spatial response level to this policy. Results show that: (1) CLUE was basically stable at around 70 % during the study period, and slightly downward after policy implementation. (2) The spatial response of CLUE to the maize structural adjustment policy was negative, and there was no significant spatial spillover effect. (3) CLUE was more affected by the time lag than spatial interaction, due to the CLUE impacted in the previous period, the spatial response level of CLUE to the policy reduced. (4) After policy implementation, CLUE had a spatial spillover effect, and a spatial coordinated governance mechanism for cultivated land use was implied in the policy. These findings affirmed the importance of agricultural policy in promoting agricultural factors flow and the factor allocation efficiency. Based on this, we proposed to focus on the strategic synergy among the regional social security (including non-agricultural employment), economic development policy, the cultivated land use. Meanwhile, an adaptation mechanism should be established to carry out the planting structure optimization, as well as to improve farmers' adaptability and efficiency to planting structure changes by strengthening the zonal guidance, the behavioral regulation, and the dynamic feedback on crop planting for different types of planting entities.