Land-lost Farmers Research Articles

The Forgotten People: The Impact of Land-Loss on Chinese Farmers’ Happiness

Since the 1980s, China’s development and urbanization have led to many farmers losing their land. Most of those land-lost farmers live in urban areas. This paper uses data from the 2018 China Family Panel Study to explore the factors that impact the happiness of land-lost farmers. After controlling for eight variables from three aspects - demographic variables, socioeconomic variables, and social helping variables - it is clear that the experience of land loss hurts farmers’ happiness. This is because the experience of land loss contributes to the loss of social status and psychological health issues caused by the imbalance of low fees paid for land expropriation. The government should consider slowing down the pace of urbanization since it brings less happiness for farmers on average.

Uncovering the Hidden Risks: A Bibliometric Investigation of Farmers’ Vulnerability to Climate Change

Climate change is having a significant impact on farmers and agriculture. Rising temperatures and extreme weather events, such as droughts and floods, are causing crop failures and reducing yields. This study evaluated existing publications from 2006 to 2022, using the Web of Science database, Citespace, and the Bibliometrix package in R language for a systematic analysis. A total of 426 publications were identified, written by 1449 authors from 56 countries. The results showed that China has the highest share of publications (16.4%), followed by the United States (14.3%) and Australia (6.8%), with China and Pakistan collaborating most frequently. The keyword timeline analysis from 2006 to 2022 identified 11 clusters of research topics related to farmers’ climate change risk (CCRF). Cluster #1, “water conservation measures,” had the longest duration, highlighting its significance. Key areas of CCRF research include the vulnerability of land-lost farmers, farmers’ use of meteorological information, sources of risk, barriers to implementing conservation agriculture, farmers’ attitudes towards heavy metal pollution, and the use of protection motivation theory in agricultural adaptation. In conclusion, climate change poses significant threats to farmers, impacting crop yields, soil fertility, and water availability. Farmers adopt adaptation strategies, but effectiveness varies due to resource limitations and policy gaps. The research on farmer adaptation to climate change is growing, emphasizing the need for supportive policies, resources, and knowledge-sharing to achieve sustainable agriculture and food security.

Livelihood vulnerability assessment of land-lost farmers in the context of tourism and the COVID-19 pandemic

Livelihood vulnerability assessment of land-lost farmers in the context of tourism and the COVID-19 pandemic

Modeling the Influence of Expropriated Farmers' Determinants on Compensation Payments Using Multiple Regression

In recent years, Rwanda's economic shift has been triggered by expropriation for land conversion in areas of urbanization, roadways, modern village settlements, and agricultural modernization. Even though various studies on expropriation have been carried out to elucidate constraints associated with expropriation, as far as we know, no Multiple Linear Regression (MLR) analysis models have been used to determine the land-lost farmers' profiles' association with compensatory payments. This study was carried out in the Eastern Province of Rwanda. This study investigated how the expropriated farmers' profiles can influence both the compensatory payment appraisal and expropriation for land conversion. The MLR model was utilized to ascertain the relationships between the response variable (compensatory payments) and the explanatory variables (expropriated farmer profiles). Data were obtained using a questionnaire administered to 90 expropriated farmers selected using purposive and multi-stage sampling techniques and analyzed using STATA. The MLR showed a good fit of the model (R2 = 0.6900) with the results that farmer's age, means of acquiring land (the fact of owning land from inheritance), cropping systems (the fact of mono-cropping practice), and satisfaction (the fact of being satisfied) showed statistically significant (p £ 0.05) association with compensatory payments; whereas "ubudehe" (the fact of being a high-income earner) and civil status (the fact of being married) were statistically significant at 10%. An important implication of these results is that in the perspective of expropriation for infrastructure developments that affect farmers' properties, the MLR model can solve several issues associated with this process. As a recommendation, governments, investors, expropriating agencies, and property valuers are encouraged to carry out the process of land expropriation by exploring and controlling the significant factors influencing the process.

Economic and Spatial Integration of Land-Lost Households in Inland China: Evidence from a Survey in Nanchang City

Many farmers lost their land and resettled in urban areas because of the rapid urban expansion of China. Although many studies have investigated the livelihood conditions of farmers after their resettlement, very little is known about their long-term outcomes. Based on a questionnaire survey, this study investigated the economic and spatial integration of land-lost farmers living in urban areas for more than ten years. Further, this study also examined the association between their economic and spatial integration. Our survey results indicate that the economic and spatial integration of the offspring from land-lost households were low. Although the educational level of the offspring was higher compared to the previous generation, there were still considerable disparities between them and other urbanites. Additionally, although their employment rate was improved, the quality of their occupations was not significantly enhanced, with unskilled or semi-skilled jobs being the most common. Furthermore, nearly half of the offspring reported a relatively low level of spatial integration (still living in the collective resettlement neighborhoods), which is influenced by demographic characteristics, family characteristics, and economic integration. To achieve sustainable urbanization, efforts should be made to improve the employment qualities and the residential mobility of land-lost households.

Road to the city: Impact of land expropriation on farmers’ urban settlement intention in China

The gains and losses of farmers’ welfare brought by China’s land expropriation have been of broad concern, but little literature has focused on the motivation of land-lost farmers to settle in cities. Although the Chinese government has implemented a series of major strategies influencing land-lost farmers’ migration, the citizenization of rural migrants has always been a challenge. Using the data from 2016 China’s Labor-force Dynamic Survey (CLDS), this paper discovers that land expropriation strengthens land-lost farmers’ willingness toward urban settlement. Two underlying mechanisms that may influence the decision of land-lost farmers to settle in cities are revealed: positive economic factors and negative social-cultural factors. The economic incentives caused by land compensation can promote the probability of farmers’ urban settlement intention. However, farmland loss also brought an increased employment risk for farmers. Besides, after the land expropriation, the land-lost farmers have more frequent contact with their old neighbors. These social-cultural factors would hinder the farmers’ willingness toward urban settlement. Our findings are robust using both Instrumental variable (IV) estimation and the propensity score matching (PSM) method. These findings provide a deeper understanding of the economic and social consequences of land expropriation policies. In addition to land expropriation, more attention should be paid to the resettlement of land-lost farmers.

Research on Improving the Welfare of Peasant Households with Expropriated Land from the Perspective of Common Prosperity

Common prosperity is an essential requirement of socialism and an important feature of Chinese modernization. The goal is to enable everyone to share in the fruits of economic and social development. At present, the problem of unbalanced and insufficient development in our country is still outstanding, and the task of common prosperity is still arduous. Among them, it is a necessary problem to let farmers who are expropriated land share the fruits of economic development and improve their welfare to realize common prosperity. A large number of rural collective land has been expropriated, which has played an important role in promoting the development of urbanization. Meanwhile, it has also brought about changes in the quality of life of farmers whose land has been expropriated. Common prosperity should not only improve their income, but also comprehensively improve the welfare level. Based on the theory of sen feasible ability, plans to build the landless farmers benefit evaluation index system, rapidly to the landless peasants for field survey, data collection, using the fuzzy comprehensive evaluation method evaluating the landless farmers welfare changes direction and change level, further analyses the reason of peasant household welfare changes, improve pertinently the countermeasures of landless farmers welfare In order to further improve the compensation system for land expropriation, let land-lost farmers truly share the fruits of urbanization development, narrow the gap between urban and rural areas, and achieve common prosperity to provide reference.

Exploring the Effect of In Situ Urbanization on Youth Entrepreneurship in Suburban Areas with Low-Medium Development in China--A Way Forward to Sustainable Entrepreneurship Mechanism

China’s traditional suburban urbanization pattern of “passively being centralized upstairs” is not ideal, so China has been implementing human-centered new urbanization and urban–rural integration development strategy. Promoting employment through entrepreneurship is an effective way to solve the problem of long-term livelihood of land-lost farmers in China. There are few studies on entrepreneurship of land-lost farmers with the background ofin situurbanization in the suburbs. Based on the field survey data of two suburban villages representing the low–medium level of development in China, this study takes entrepreneurship of suburban youth as the research object and uses Logistic and Mlogit models to investigate the influences of psychological states of suburban youth on their entrepreneurship and the different entrepreneurial status duringin situurbanization pattern from three aspects. The results show that underin situurbanization pattern, the psychological states of suburban youth have significant and steady influences on their entrepreneurial behaviors. Moreover, the satisfaction degree of land expropriation compensation has a partial mediation effect on suburban youth’s judgment of future life. There are different effects of the three psychological states on the two entrepreneurial states. Therefore, urban governments at all levels in China should choose the suburban urbanization pattern according to local conditions and time changes and realize sustainable entrepreneurship of suburban land-lost farmers during their becoming citizens with keeping nostalgia.

The effects of farmland conversion on livelihood assets in peri-urban areas of Addis Ababa Metropolitan city, the case of Akaki Kaliti sub-city, Central Ethiopia

Livelihood assets have been greatly influenced by the transformation of farmlands in peri-urban areas. The objective of this study is to analyze the effects of farmland conversion to access livelihood assets in peri-urban areas of Akaki-Kaliti Sub-city, Central Ethiopia. Required data were collected from survey households, key informant interviews, and focus group discussions. A cross-sectional survey research design was employed to collect information from 329 peri-urban households selected using a snowballing sampling technique. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used to analyze the data. The results revealed that the conversion of farmland has negatively affected the overall livelihood assets in the study area. Besides, the effects on financial assets were considerable. However, the effects on physical and human assets were not significant. Natural asset shows a substantial decline followed by social and physical assets. However, financial and human assets show a slight decline. In general, conversions in farmlands have negatively influenced households' access to livelihood assets in the study area. Therefore, intervention is required to reduce the effects of farmland conversion and enhance the livelihoods of land-lost farmers in the peri-urban areas.

Prosocial village leaders and the resettlement outcomes of land-lost farmers: evidence from Qingdao, China

ABSTRACT This paper examines whether the prosociality of village leaders who were involved in the original implementation of a resettlement decision impact the well-being of households from seven villages four years after the displacement. In particular, we report the significant statistical correlation between the level of group cooperation of village officials as elicited from a public good game in seven rural villages and the reported levels of life satisfaction four years after the resettlement. The data comes from two sources: (i) a laboratory experiment with village officials at the time of resettlement, and (ii) follow-up telephone interviews with resettled villagers. We find that these prosocial attitudes of leaders complement other sustainable livelihood measures in promoting the well-being of resettled villagers.

What affects the “house-for-pension” scheme consumption behavior of land-lost farmers in China?

Rapid industrialization and urbanization have resulted in a significant number of land-lost farmers in China. With the intensification of land expropriation and demolition, the problems of the “house-for-pension” scheme for land-lost farmers and housing security are also becoming increasingly serious. Based on the theory of planed behaviour, this study builds the consumption behaviour model of the “house-for-pension” scheme for land-lost farmers via questionnaire and survey methodology to deeply explore the key factors of lost-land farmers’ expense intention on housing, and the hypotheses are verified by a structural equation modelling. The results show that the variables of attitude toward behaviour and subjective norms have a significant positive correlation with consumer intentions. At the same time, perceived price values, location preferences, perceived living environment, supporting service perception and perceived current house arrangement exist separately from attitude toward behaviour for individual behaviours. However, there is no positive correlation between perceptual behaviour control and consumer intentions, which contradicts the initial hypothesis of the study. This article explains that housing is the carrier of human life and maintains a heavy weight in daily life. Decisions cannot be made by individuals alone but by the entire family. The results reveal suggestions for enterprises, governmental and nongovernmental organizations, including improving the overall evaluation of consumers from the multiattribute dimension of products, using norms to tap potential customers, and actively developing the industrial chain of retirement. The findings of this study can provide references for enterprises, governmental and nongovernmental organizations to formulate suitable housing products and public policies for elderly land-lost farmers.

What Limits the Benefits of Land-Lost Farmers in Chinese Courts? An Investigation of Chinese Land Acquisition and Resettlement Cases in the Yangtze River Delta

Due to China’s rapid urbanization, the growing presence of land-lost farmers in land acquisition and resettlement (LAR) cases has led to major practical and academic concerns. However, few studies have focused on administration policy restrictions and how they affect land-lost farmers in Chinese courts for land resources. Based on the quantitative analysis and case studies involving 2,242 administrative LAR cases, this interdisciplinary work examines how administrative bureaucracy affects public departments’ ability to win in court. The findings of this study are twofold. First, in the relationship of Tiao, public departments at the top of the hierarchy can use administration policies to screen conflicts, which can increase the win rate of LAR cases. Second, in the relationship of Kuai, authorities’ relationships limit the investment in administration policies, which in turn decide the utility of administration policies in LAR cases. The findings can facilitate the implementation of appropriate administrative and judicial measures in different departments to promote land-lost farmers.

Invisible windfalls and wipeouts: What is the impact of spatial regulation on the welfare of land-lost farmers?

Spatial regulation produces different advantages in areas with different land resource endowments. It also affects the welfare of stakeholders in different regions. Existing studies mainly focus on the “visible” welfare “windfalls” and “wipeouts” caused by spatial regulation, yet pay little attention on the “invisible” effects. This article selects Tianyang County (a key development zone) and Tiandong County (a restricted development zone) as its principal research areas. These areas have been divided as part of China's major function oriented zone (MFOZ) planning. The MFOZ represents the most significant and broad exercise in spatial regulation. These regions located in Baise City, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, China. After applying Sen's feasibility capability theory as the foundation on which to build a theoretical framework, this article calculates and compares the changes in farmers' welfare before and after losing land in the key development zones (weak spatial regulation) and the restricted development zones (strong spatial regulation) by using a fuzzy mathematics method. The impact of spatial regulation on the “invisible” welfare of land-lost farmers is then analyzed. The results show that: (1) differences in spatial regulation produce “windfalls” in the total welfare of land-lost farmers in the key development zones, but “wipeouts” in the restricted development zones; (2) the “visible” welfare of economic income for land-lost farmers are “windfalls” in the key development zones, but are “wipeouts” in the restricted development zones; (3) the “invisible” welfares of social security, development opportunities, living conditions and psychological conditions are “windfalls” for land-lost farmers in the key development zones, but are “wipeouts” in the restricted development zones; (4) the “invisible” welfare of living environments for land-lost farmers are “wipeouts” in the key development zones, but are “windfalls” in the restricted development zones. This study thereby provides evidence-based insights which can enable countries to formulate spatial regulation systems that promote balanced development among regions, and to fully consider the “invisible” welfare compensation of land-lost farmers as part of land expropriation compensation policies.

Influencing Factors Analysis on Land-Lost Farmers’ Happiness Based on the Rough DEMATEL Method

In this paper, fifteen indicators from four dimensions are selected to construct an evaluation system for the happiness of land-lost farmers. The factors affecting the happiness of land-lost farmers are analyzed using the rough DEMATEL method. The results show that land expropriation compensation (F6) and job stability (F7) are the driving factors for improving the happiness of land-lost farmers. The government can improve the social environment policies, such as land acquisition, social security, and employment to influence other factors and improve the level of happiness of land-losing farmers. This study has important guiding significance and reference value for the reform of China’s land expropriation, the protection of land-lost farmers’ rights and interests and the improvement of their happiness, and the maintenance of social harmony and stability.

Livelihood adaptation and life satisfaction among land-lost farmers: Critiquing China’s urbanisation-driven land appropriation

Abstract Large-scale rural land appropriation and displacement, driven by the unprecedented urban growth currently experienced in China, has created millions of land-lost peasants who live in the city but remain culturally, socially and institutionally rural. The situation has attracted growing attention in the literature because of its negative social impact, but relatively few studies have addressed how land-lost farmers adapt to urban ways of life and what factors influence their life satisfaction. In this paper, we investigate the predictors of livelihood adaptation and life satisfaction of land-lost farmers from a land appropriation case in the city of Changchun, Northeast China. The results show that, five years after the appropriation, livelihood adaptation remained very difficult and life satisfaction was poor among the resettlers. Furthermore, marginalised groups, such as those who were older, less educated and from smaller families, and those with lower pre-displacement income were less likely to have a higher income level after resettlement, resulting in a lower level of life satisfaction. Women also had lower life satisfaction than men. The study highlights an urgent need to improve China’s unjust land appropriation policy with a particular focus on attending to the needs of marginalised groups.

Welfare Effect Evaluation of Land-Lost Farmers’ Households under Different Livelihood Asset Allocation

Based on research into the theory of household assets and the welfare of farmers, the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP)-entropy weight method and cloud model were used to study the welfare level of land-lost farmers’ households under the different livelihood assets of Taohuayi Village, Taohuasan Village and Taohuawu Village in Taohua Town, Nanchang City. The results show that (1) The comprehensive welfare level of asset-deficient farmers’ households is between the “bad” and “medium” levels and is closer to the “bad” level. The comprehensive welfare level of asset-balanced farmers’ households is between “general” and “good” and is closer to the “good” level. (2) Judging from the various functional activity indicators that affect the welfare of the land-lost farmers, after the asset-deficient farmers’ households lose their land, the welfare level of the family’s financial situation, social security, living environment, mental status, development opportunities, and political participation are generally at low to medium-low levels, and only living conditions are at medium-to-high levels. (3) The welfare level of the living environment of the asset-balanced farmers’ households is at a moderately low level, and the welfare of the remaining functional activities is at a medium to a medium-high level. We then propose corresponding policy recommendations. After losing land, it is necessary to implement a differentiated circulation guarantee and support policies to achieve targeted compensation and support for the land-lost farmers’ households to improve the welfare level of land-lost farmers’ households under different living asset allocation.

The Land-lost Farmers and Local Government: Grassroots Governance in China’s Urban-Rural Peripheries

ABSTRACT This article analyzes the grassroots governance in the rapid urbanization process on the rural-urban periphery of Changsha with regard to the relationship between land-lost farmers and the local government. Distinct from conventional wisdom that implies an interpretation of that relationship that is too dichotomous and static, the present study explores the relationship using the structure-agency dynamics model played out locally within a network of power-interests structure. In turn, the different strategies attached to both sides of the grassroots governance induce a contrasting power-interests structure, as displayed in three resettlement communities: fatalism and resignation, outright conflict, and resolution through local participation. It is notable that local governance emerges when farmers’ views and participation are incorporated, thus opening a public space for dialogue and farmers’ entrepreneurial activity.

Effect of Land Expropriation on Land-Lost Farmers' Health: Empirical Evidence from Rural China.

With rapid urbanization and industry development, China has witnessed substantial land acquisition. Using the rural household survey data, this paper examines the impact of land expropriation on land-lost farmers’ self-reported health with the ordered probit model and investigates the possible mechanisms. The results show that the land expropriation puts higher health risks over those land-lost farmers and the health status of land-lost farmers is significantly worse than that of those with land. Land expropriation has a negative impact on the land-lost farmer’s health through income effects and psychological effects. The health status of land-lost farmers can be enhanced through amending current land requisition policies, increasing the amount of compensation, improving the earning capacity of land-lost farmers and strengthening mental health education.

Land expropriation, shock to employment, and employment differentiation: Findings from land-lost farmers in Nanjing, China

Along with the acceleration of urbanization and industrialization in China since the late 1990s, a large amount of farmland has been expropriated for non-agricultural use, which has caused the emergence of many land-lost farmers. This article compares the change in employment status of land-lost farmers before and after land expropriation using the survey data of Nanjing city and analyzes the employment shock caused by land expropriation and consequent employment differentiation. The main conclusions are as follows: approximately 54% of farmers changed their original employment status after land expropriation, and the majority of them were engaged in agriculture before the expropriation; furthermore, the elderly and the farmers with lower human capital have more probability of suffering from the employment shock. In addition, there is an obvious differentiation of employment among the farmers who suffered the employment shock: the two most prominent patterns are migrant labor and unemployment, with few land-lost farmers continuing to engage in agriculture. Further econometric tests show that the improvement of human capital can significantly assist farmers in transferring to various non-agricultural occupations, but the older land-lost farmers are more likely to be unemployed, and the males are more willing to be migrant workers. In addition, there are also relationships between employment differentiation of farmers with the land compensation, land use, and living subsidy. The policy implications of this study are mainly embodied in providing vocational training to land-lost farmers and improving the targeting accuracy of employment assistance.

Gains and losses: Does farmland acquisition harm farmers’ welfare?

Based on data from the China Household Income Project in 2013, this study empirically evaluates the income effect and happiness effect of land acquisition. The results show that land acquisition improves household income but reduces individual happiness. Propensity score matching (PSM) methods have proved the robustness of this result. The mechanism analysis shows that (1) land compensation is not enough to generate “labor supply effect”, whereas land acquisition intensity has a dominant effect which promotes households allocate more labor on off-farm labor market, especially on local off-farm activities. The positive income effect is significant only in the eastern region of China. (2) Both the great deprivation of farmland and compensation inequality have a negative effect on happiness level, but various forms of non-pecuniary compensation have no significant effect on happiness improvement. We conclude that the increase in household income cannot offset the negative effect of land acquisition on happiness, the decrease in happiness levels of land-lost farmers may be largely due to the compensatio system which has not provided fair compensation and not sufficiently taken full account of how to secure their property rights and ensure their long-term livelihood. Finally, we provide recommendations on the reform of the current land acquisition system to improve the interests and welfare of land-lost farmers during the process of urbanization.