Land Reallocation Research Articles

Water Variability and the Economic Impacts on Small-Scale Farmers. A Farm Risk-Based Integrated Modelling Approach

Strengthening the planning of hydrological resources to optimize the use of water in agriculture is a key adaptation measure of the Chilean agricultural sector to cope with future climate change. To address this challenge, decision-makers call for tools capable of representing farmers’ behaviours under the likely stresses generated by future climate conditions. In this context, of special concern are the effects of water variability on small-scale farmers, who commonly operate with narrow profit margins and who lack access to financial resources and technological knowledge. This paper sheds light on the economic impacts of changes in water availability on small-scale agriculture. We provide a hydro-economic modelling framework that captures the socio-economic effects of water shocks on smallholders in the Vergara River Basin, Chile. This approach links a farm risk-based economic optimization model to a hydrologic simulation model adjusted for the basin. Our results indicate that at the aggregated level, there will be minor economic impacts of climate change on the basin’s small-scale agriculture, with small decreases in both expected utility and wealth. However, large differences in the economic impacts of wealthy and poor small-scale farmers are found. Changes in water availability, reduce the options of land reallocation to increase farmer’s expected utility, being the poor small-scale farmers the most negatively affected.

Imaging Disaster: Tokyo and the Visual Culture of Japan’s Great Earthquake of 1923 by Gennifer Weisenfeld

Reviewed by: Imaging Disaster: Tokyo and the Visual Culture of Japan’s Great Earthquake of 1923 by Gennifer Weisenfeld Miryam Sas (bio) Imaging Disaster: Tokyo and the Visual Culture of Japan’s Great Earthquake of 1923. By Gennifer Weisenfeld. University of California Press, Berkeley, 2012. xvi, 393 pages. $85.00, cloth; $85.00, E-book. At 11:58 AM on September 1, 1923, an enormous earthquake registering 7.9 in seismic magnitude shook the Tokyo area, including Yokohama and five surrounding prefectures. Newly developed seismographic techniques in Tokyo recorded a total of seventeen hundred separate quakes over three days (p. 50). A giant tsunami rose; fires swept through the area, incinerating some 44 per cent of metropolitan Tokyo and killing—by crushing or incineration—well over one hundred thousand people. The new prime minister declared martial law for Tokyo and Yokohama and stationed fifty thousand troops around the area for a period of two and a half months, declaring that “extraordinary measures” were necessary to assure public security and order. The army and police force aided the organization [End Page 383] and instigation, as well as the actions, of vigilante squads who murdered over six thousand of the twenty thousand resident Koreans in the Kanto region as well as many Chinese. They performed targeted assassinations of important socialist and anarchist leaders, whom they claimed to be social subversives, including the well-known Ōsugi Sakae and his wife Itō Noe. The state then censored and repressed information about the vigilante squads and murders, stressing the benevolence of the state and the innocence of its victims. Home Minister Gotō Shinpei led the reconstruction effort, taking the opportunity of the relatively “clean slate” of the Tokyo landscape to enact a large-scale urban renewal project that transformed the face of Tokyo and its infrastructure, from the construction of main thoroughfares and waterways and sewage lines to bridges and the reallocation of land. Gennifer Weisenfeld’s new book takes up the topic of the visual representations of the earthquake and its aftermath, in magazines, postcards, comics, photography, films, scientific and planning charts, paintings, and eventually museum and memorial architecture. She shows convincingly that this visual process was part and parcel of the unfolding of the events, as various stakeholders created the version of what was transpiring that suited their own needs. The after-images of the event appropriate existing visual rhetorics of disaster—after all, Tokyo and other places in Japan had been subject to fires and earthquakes long before this one. The images draw on and transmute this visual vocabulary for purposes of mourning, spectacularization, and construction of a national narrative of heroic recovery, as well as at times to criticize social ills. Modernist artists, including members of the Mavo group that were the subject of Weisenfeld’s first book, took up the rupture of the earthquake along with modernity’s transformations to experiment with on-site art projects among the temporary housing “barracks” and newly renovated commercial buildings. With about two hundred reproductions of color and black and white images on high-quality paper, the book—which weighs in at over 2.5 pounds, as I noticed when I took it on a plane—gives us a chance to peruse and understand many specific examples of visual culture in context. Weisenfeld reads the images for us and places them in the broader, roughly chronological narrative of the earthquake and its aftermath. Particularly fascinating in the prehistory of earthquake representation are the catfish prints (namazu-e) that became popular during the Edo period, especially in the wake of the Ansei earthquake of 1855. Catfish, as Weisenfeld reminds us, “often act strangely before earthquakes, perhaps because they can sense the first small tremors as they swim in the mud close to the ground” (p. 22). In the Edo period, with the rise of mass-produced printed broadsheets (kawaraban) as a source of news and many forms of woodblock printing, both sanctioned and illegal, artists and illustrators generated over four hundred varieties of [End Page 384] catfish prints: “People believed that at moments of moral or social crisis, particularly when ‘spiritual reconstruction’ (seishin fukkō) was needed, the catfish would get loose, causing earthquake tremors by...

Land documents, tenure security and land rental development: Panel evidence from China

We use household and farm-plot level data from a two period panel survey covering six provinces in China to explore how tenure security, especially issuance of land documents, affected people's behavior in China's rural land rental market. A correlated random effect model is used to account for the endogeneity of document issuance and land reallocations. The econometric analysis shows that possession of documents and fewer major land reallocations encourage households to engage in land renting to non-family members, and the effects of land right documents are stronger in 2008 than in 2000.

The development of farm labor market in rural China

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine key determinants of farm labor market development in rural China. Design/methodology/approach – Probit, Logit, and IV-Probit model are used to provide pertinent empirical analysis. Findings – Analysis of survey data establishes three facts about the farm labor market in rural China: first, households with high farm endowment are more likely to hire farm labor; second, because of the mismatch between farm ability and land size created by egalitarian land reallocation, households with more land reallocations are more likely to participate in farm labor market to adjust such mismatch; third, land rental market and farm labor market seem to be complementary. These results are robust to alternative model specifications, subsamples, alternative dependent variables, and additional controls. Welfare analysis demonstrates that the farm labor market is conducive to agricultural output. Originality/value – The main contribution of this study is to lay out stylized facts in terms of the development of farm labor market using a unique survey data set.

Determinants for CSR in Developing Countries: The Case of Indonesian Palm Oil Companies

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is playing an increasingly important role in developing countries like Indonesia, where the palm oil industry, in particular, has caused public concern over its possible impacts on the environment. A land reallocation program called NES has been initiated by the Indonesian government with the aim of harmonizing the benefits of palm oil production between the palm oil processing companies and small-scale farmers. This is of particular interest as the CSR activities of the companies could provide an indicator of their attitudes toward a socially acceptable management style. This research aims to find empirical evidence to identify the driving forces behind the CSR activities carried out by palm oil companies in Indonesia. The results of the regression analysis performed on data from a questionnaire survey of large-scale palm oil companies concluded that not only the size of the company but also the performance of the NES scheme and the perception of relationships with local communities are major driving forces that stimulate participation in CSR activities.

주택지의 기능변화에 따른 가로환경 개선 방안 - 대구시의 1970년대 토지구획정리사업지구를 중심으로 -

This study aims to derive street design alternative which can be applied to residential area as the functions of land use have been changed. The main findings are as follows; First, the study area in this research is on the process of the functional transition from full residential use to residential-commercial mixed use with cafes and restaurants. Second, dead-end streets in residential areas needs to be widened in order to meet the increasing needs of pedestrians and cars. One of the suggested strategies is to remove fences on the dead-end streets. Third, based on the main findings, this research can suggest following policies. Citizen participation is necessary in building land use plans and space design in old residential areas. Citizens can participate in architectural and landscape contracts, district-unit plan with the help of experts such as urban planners and architects.

Comparison of designed different land reallocation models in land consolidation: A case study in Konya/Turkey

Land consolidation (LC) is the most favorable land management approach for solving agricultural land degradation. LC is essential for ensuring the economic viability of rural areas, facilitating environmental management, or rationalizing urban growth.LC projects consist of various steps. Land reallocation is the most important stage of LC studies and a tool which rearranges proprietary rights. For fast and efficient progress in projects, usage of computer technology has been essential.In this case study, designed two different land reallocation models (SDSS-based and GA-based land reallocation models) is compared for LC projects in reallocation of newly created regular size parcels to landowners. As a result of these comparisons, the GA-based model is some successful than the SDSS-based model in terms of average parcel size, number of parcels and average number of parcels per land-owner. The benefits derived from both models are much higher than conventional models.

Reducing reservoir impacts and improving outcomes for dam‐forced resettlement: experiences in central Vietnam

AbstractThe present study focuses on the growing problem of the impacts of human displacement resulting from hydropower dam construction, within the context of the integrated lake basin management of dam reservoirs. Dam‐forced displacement and resettlement can pose severe challenges to the environmental, economic and social sustainability of a reservoir basin. A case study in Quang Nam Province, central Vietnam, suggests that many resettled communities experience impoverishment due to the lack of adequate replacement land, declines in supplemental food sources and reduced access to natural resources. In response to such situations, resettled residents may (i) destroy lake catchment forests for the purpose of converting them to farmland or engage in illegal logging; (ii) increase agrichemical inputs on reduced land, thereby polluting run‐off and groundwater; and (iii) place increased pressure on fish stocks and wildlife. Examples are provided from central Vietnam to illustrate the need for applying management approaches that allows the affected people to become beneficiaries of dam projects and for including civil society organisations in resettlement planning. The hydropower authority can fund benefit‐sharing mechanisms, including village‐level electrification and payment for environmental services schemes, in which resettled populations are paid for forest maintenance and protection to prevent erosion and deforestation, and reservoir access can be provided for fishing, aquaculture and agriculture. Civil society organizations can advocate for residents’ interests and for reallocation of protected forest land for community forestry. These approaches can be supported by an inclusive reservoir management board working to achieve environmental sustainability, economic growth and social equity.

Broadening stakeholder participation to improve outcomes for dam-forced resettlement in Vietnam

Forced resettlement due to hydropower dam construction in Vietnam continues to result in poor outcomes, in part due to the poor productivity of replacement agricultural land, poor local governance, and constrained access by displaced farmers to forest land and fisheries. This paper critically examines three recent initiatives in Vietnam that promise to promote more stable livelihoods for displaced populations and to strengthen participation in development for residents as well as civil society. The first is a payment for environmental services (PES) scheme for hydroelectric revenue sharing to fund forest maintenance and monitoring by displaced households, while the second focus is an international financial institution (IFI)-initiated project that prioritizes gender empowerment and participation. The PES scheme promises a sustainable income stream for displaced households and has institutionalized legal and government backing, but it entails high transaction costs and a lengthy planning phase. The IFI project offers residents generous compensation and the rights embodied in IFI involuntary safeguards, but a lack of effective livelihood support and poor communication provide cautionary notes. A third, rights-based approach by Vietnamese civil society organizations (CSOs) involves advocacy to achieve effective reallocation of state-managed forest land to displaced villagers. The authors examine the potential for benefit-sharing mechanisms, IFIs, and CSOs, backed by new legislation and expanding space for civil society in Vietnam, to address the problems posed by inadequate local governance. They conclude that these approaches show merit for nationwide replication, and there is a need for including these external stakeholders in local resettlement management bodies.

How Much Expropriation Hazard Is Too Much? The Effect of Land Reallocation on Organic Fertilizer Usage in Rural China

In China, land is reallocated on either a full-scale or a partial basis. By employing a unique farm survey that deliberately draws a distinction between full-scale and partial land reallocations, and by decomposing their respective expropriation risk effects, we find that the significantly negative effect of expropriation risk on organic fertilizer usage is driven solely by full-scale reallocation. Consistent with this finding, a reduction in the predicted expropriation hazard rate by half leads to a sizable increase of 491% in organic fertilizer usage in villages with a history of full-scale reallocation, and has an estimated productivity effect of 19.1%.

Land reallocation reform in rural China: A behavioral economics perspective

Based on prospect theory, we develop a theoretical framework to unify divided views on land reallocation reform in China. Our theoretical framework and empirical verification explain the driving forces behind the success of the rural land reallocation reform in China. We find that rural land reallocation reform in China is characterized by induced and imposed institutional changes. The relationship between induced and imposed institutional change is complementary instead of competing. The decision and frequency of land reallocation are affected by both local endowment and central government policy. Empirical findings also suggest that land reallocation reform in China is incremental, with interim policy targets from different stages taking gradual effect. The incremental implementation of the “No Reallocation” policy is the reason behind the widespread, diversified land reallocation practices across the country; this policy also contributes to the success of rural land reform in China. The theoretical model can be used to study a wide range of government-led institutional changes in China, such as affordable housing schemes and the National New-type Urbanization Plan (2014–2020).

Land tenure insecurity and rural‐urban migration in rural China

AbstractThis paper examines the impact of land tenure security perceptions on rural‐urban migration decisions of rural households, using data collected in Minle County in Northwest China. We find that tenure security perceptions play a significant role in household migration decisions in villages without well‐functioning land rental markets but not in villages where the land rental markets are more developed. In villages with underdeveloped land rental markets, households that expect that no land reallocations will occur within their village in the near future are less involved in migration, while households that attach a greater importance to land certificates in protecting land use rights are more involved in migration.

Stakeholder responses to measures green and efficient urban freight

The project Green Urban Distribution aims at identifying and demonstrating green and efficient solutions for urban freight distribution through improved organization, service innovation and the application of technology. The successful introduction of such solutions depends on the acceptability and receptivity of involved stakeholders. Stakeholders in this case include carriers, end-receivers and local authorities. This paper presents stakeholder evaluations of two specific measures aimed at increasing the utilization of street areas, night and evening deliveries: mobile depots allow for the reallocation of land, whereas night and evening deliveries promote urban goods distribution in periods with low traffic and disperse distribution activities across 24hours. The findings of the paper lead to the development of a theoretical representation of particular collaborative processes in urban freight, as well as an aide in the practical organization and approach to measure implementation.

Mismatch

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the relative impacts of full-scale land reallocation (FLR) and partial-scale land reallocation (PLR) on household land rental behavior in rural China. Design/methodology/approach – Probit model, Tobit model and Semi-parametric model are used to provide empirical evidences. Findings – Drawing upon an unique farm survey in 2003, the authors find that in rural China, FLR is more likely to follow egalitarian rule and PLR takes productivity of households into consideration. Econometric analysis provides two main findings. First, FLR has positive effect on household land rental behavior, possibly because egalitarian FLR creates a mismatch between household agricultural ability and land size and after FLR households have to participate in land rental market to adjust the mismatch. Second, PLR has negative effect on household land rental behavior which supports that land reallocation and land rental market are substitutes (Brandt et al., 2004). Originality/value – The main contribution of this study is to show that FLR and PLR in rural China are motivated by two different rationales (i.e. FLR by egalitarian concerns and PLR by efficiency concerns).

Land Reallocation Reform in Rural China: A Behavioral Economics Perspectivee

Based on prospect theory, we develop a theoretical framework to unify divided views on land reallocation reform in China. Our theoretical framework and empirical verification explain the driving forces behind the success of the rural land reallocation reform in China. We find that rural land reallocation reform in China is characterized by induced and imposed institutional changes. The relationship between induced and imposed institutional change is complementary instead of competing. The decision and frequency of land reallocation are affected by both local endowment and central government policy. Empirical findings also suggest that land reallocation reform in China is progressive, with interim policy targets from different stages taking gradual effect. The progressive implementation of the “No Reallocation” policy is the reason behind the widespread, diversified land reallocation practices across the country; this policy also contributes to the success of rural land reform in China. The findings also provide valuable lessons for government-led land right formalization in other developing countries.

Village Political Economy, Land Tenure Insecurity, and the Rural to Urban Migration Decision: Evidence from China

This paper investigates the impact of land tenure insecurity on the migration decisions of China's rural residents. A simple model first frames the relationship among these variables and the probability that a reallocation of land will occur in the following year. After first demonstrating that a village leader's support for administrative land reallocation carries with it the risk of losing a future election, the paper exploits election-timing and village heterogeneity in lineage group composition and demographic change to identify the effect of land security. In response to an expected land reallocation in the following year, the probability that a rural resident migrates out of the county declines by 2.8 percentage points, which accounts for 17.5 percent of the annual share of village residents, aged 16 to 50, who worked as migrants during the period. This finding underscores the potential importance of secure property rights for facilitating labor market integration and the movement of labor out of agriculture.

Moving Off the Farm: Land Institutions to Facilitate Structural Transformation and Agricultural Productivity Growth in China

Agriculture has made major contributions to China's economic growth and poverty reduction, but the literature has rarely focused on the institutional factors that might underpin such structural transformation and productivity. This paper aims to fill that gap. Drawing on an 8-year panel of 1,200 households in six key provinces, it explores the impact of government land reallocations and formal land-use certificates on agricultural productivity growth, as well as the likelihood of households to exit from agriculture or send family members to the non-farm sector. It finds that land tenure insecurity, measured by the history of past land reallocations, discourages households from quitting agriculture. The recognition of land rights through formal certificates encourages the temporary migration of rural labor. Both factors have a large impact on productivity (at about 30 percent each), mainly by encouraging market-based land transfers. A sustained increase in non-agricultural opportunities will likely reinforce the importance of secure land tenure, which is a precondition for successful structural transformation and continued economic attractiveness of rural areas.

SWAMP: An agent-based model for wetland and waterfowl conservation management

The management of North American waterfowl is widely recognized as a premier example of a successful conservation program. Conservation managers on the wintering grounds typically use simple estimates of food availability and population-wide cumulative energy demand to determine how many birds can be supported on a given landscape. When attempting to plan for future needs due to land reallocation, climate change, and other large-scale environmental changes, simple bioenergetic models may not capture important impacts on individual behavior, such as changes in metabolic costs due to increased travel-time and reduced food accessibility leading to non-linear declines in forager success. We describe the development of an agent-based model of foraging waterfowl that uses explicit individual behavior to generate more detailed and potentially more accurate insights into the impact of environmental changes on forager success and survival. While there is growing recognition of the potential utility of agent-based models in conservation planning, there has yet to be an attempt to formulate, validate, and communicate such a model for use as a decision support tool to guide habitat management conservation for wetlands in North America. Our model seeks to provide the foundational framework for such an effort. We predict that this model will be a useful tool for stakeholders making conservation management decisions.

ENTRUSTING WESTERN EUROPE TO THE CHURCH, 400–750

ABSTRACTAlthough there had been substantial donations to the church in the course of the last two centuries of the Roman Empire, the amount of property transferred to the episcopal church and to monasteries in the following two and a half centuries would seem to have been immense. Probably rather more than 30 per cent of the Frankish kingdom was given to ecclesiastical institutions; although the Anglo-Saxon church was only established after 597, it also acquired huge amounts of land, as did the churches of Spain and Italy, although the extent conveyed in the two peninsulas is harder to estimate. The scale of endowments helps explain the occasional criticisms of the extent of church property, and also the secularisations and reallocation of church land, and indeed suggest that the transfer of property out of the control of the church in Francia and England in the eighth century may have been greater than is often assumed. The transfer of land should probably also be seen as something other than a simple change of ownership. Church property provided the economic basis for cult, for the maintenance of clergy, who were unquestionably numerous, and for the poor. In social and economic, as well as religious terms, this marked a major break with the Classical World.

Farm Size, Land Reallocation, and Labour Migration in Rural China

ABSTRACTThis paper explores the factors that determine a farm household migration decision, particularly the influence of the current land tenure system in China. Land endowment per labour is used to measure farm size. Reallocation times and expectation of future land reallocation are used to measure the land reallocation situation. Data used in this study are from a farm household survey conducted in 2009 in 17 villages in Northeast Henan province. By using a Heckman two‐stage model, the empirical findings show that there are some differences in terms of the magnitude and direction of determinants significantly affecting the decision to migrate and its duration. China's land tenure arrangements are based on egalitarian land distribution and frequent reallocation stimulates rather than deters migration in the case of land rental market imperfections. However, it is the main reason for the unique temporary and individual migration patterns. With the development of land rental markets, the importance of land transferability becomes prominent. Policies aimed at improving land security and promoting land transfer will also benefit rural labour emigration. Other factors that also have significant influence on labour migration are household size, number of household dependents, household assets and whether a household has a land‐use contract. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.