Study on land use at micro level: A case study of Donglaozhuang village, Shandong province

Abstract

Since the Thunen model was established, it has been validated, revised and expanded by many domestic and foreign scholars. Although fruitful results have been achieved,there are tremendous variations with different respects. Along with changes of agricultural production and rural social economy in China, when we investigate the patterns of land use at different levels, many problems have been identified when the Thunen theory is applied due to various location factors. Its true meaning is questioned as well, and this has to be explained through a large number of field surveys. In this paper, we analyzed the actual difference of the Thunen model in micro scale based on field surveys between grain farmers, hog and grain farmers, vegetable greenhouse farmers in Donglaozhuang Village in Shandong province. This difference is mainly determined by the farmers' decision making in agricultural production.Despite the difference in farmers' management behaviors, the structure of the Thunen model can be identified from the labor intensive property. The closer the place to home, the more intensive the labor will be. In addition, the difference in the distance is gradually disappearing along with the continuous improvement of transportation, such as the usage of bike, electric bikes, and motorcycles. It can be illustrated that the Thunen model focuses on the intensive model in agricultural production. The intensive model in agricultural production cannot be explained if only the time spent on the farmland(cost of time) and cost of transportation are considered. There are many other factors in addition to distance, such as income of farm produce, the improvement of transport, demand of consumers for all kinds of agricultural products, etc. At the micro level, when the farmland quality(fertile degree, slope, microclimate) is affected by the same natural condition, different productivity in farmland will exert effect on the distribution of crops compared with the distance between the farmland and home.Through this investigation, we found that many farmers in Donglaozhuang Village have gradually transformed agricultural management type from production of various crops to a few types of crops. An embryonic form of entrepreneur farmers has emerged to a certain extent,which pointed out the direction for the future development of rural areas in China.