Abstract
Many countries have undertaken large and high-profile payment-for-ecosystem-services (PES) programs to sustain the use of their natural resources. Nevertheless, few studies have ...comprehensively examined the impacts of existing PES programs. Grassland Ecological Compensation Policy (GECP) is one of the few pastorally focused PES programs with large investments and long duration, which aim to improve grassland quality and increase herder income. Here we present empirical evidence of the effects of GECP on grassland quality and herder income. Through a thorough and in-depth econometric analysis of remote sensing and household survey data, we find that, although GECP improves grassland quality (albeit to only a small extent) and has a large positive effect on income, it exacerbates existing income inequality among herders within their local communities. The analysis demonstrates that the program has induced herders to change their livestock production behavior. Heterogeneity analysis emphasizes the importance of making sure the programs are flexible and are adapted to local resource circumstances.
Despite of remarkable achievements in the past, China is also facing several major challenges, in particular on ensuring sustainable growth of agriculture, improving food security, increasing ...farmers' income. The paper reviews China's agricultural and food policy with specific focus on recent challenges, initial policy responses and their consequences, and re-adjusting in policies. The results show that the policy responses to the challenges of sustainable agriculture are strong and encouraging. Adjusting the national food security target in response to sustainable agriculture and major efforts to improve food security are significant. To increase farmer's income, China has shifted its policy regime from taxing to subsidizing and protecting agriculture in the past decade. However, the results of these efforts are mixture. Price interventions increased farmers' income, they also resulted in several serious problems. Good news is that some new efforts to solve these problems may bring China's market reform back to the right track though they still needs to be evaluated. The paper concludes that the previous experiences on agricultural development through institutional reform, technology change, market reform, and investment in agriculture should still be the keys for successfully ensuring food security and sustainable agriculture for China in the future.
•Despite of remarkable achievements, China's agriculture is facing great challenges.•Recent price interventions have resulted in serious policy induced challenges.•Policy responses to the challenges of sustainable agriculture are encouraging.•Recent policy changes have implications to China’s food security and global trade.•China's experiences on food policy provide lessons for many developing countries.
While the Asian food economy has been experiencing significant transitions, it is widely believed that little transformation has occurred in farm land operation. However, the recent rapid emergence ...of middle and large‐size farms in many regions of China is striking, as is the increase in size of operational units. The overall goal of this article is to understand small‐scale farm transformation in China based on a unique dataset surveyed in Northeast and North China. The results show that the institutional innovation through establishing land transfer service centers to promote land rental markets and reduce transaction costs, policy support to speed up land consolidation, and farm mechanization services are major driving forces in the recent evolution of China's farm operations. The article concludes with policy implications on small‐scale farming transformation in China and the rest of world and identifies research issues for further study.
•Rising real wages induced substitution of labor by machines in Chinese agriculture.•An expansion of machine services by providers contributed to mechanization.•Active land rental market enabled some ...farmers to increase their operational size.•Relatively educated farmers tended to reduce their operational size.•Scale economies are arising with mechanization and active land rental markets.
This paper aims to examine the dynamics of land transactions, machine investments, and the demand for machine services using farm panel data from China. Recently, China’s agriculture has experienced a large expansion of machine rentals and machine services provided by specialized agents, which has contributed to mechanization of agricultural production. On the other hand, the empirical results show that an increase in non-agricultural wage rates leads to expansion of self-cultivated land size. A rise in the proportion of non-agricultural income or the migration rate also increases the size of self-cultivated land. Interestingly, however, relatively educated farm households decrease the size of self-cultivated land, which suggests that relatively less educated farmers tend to specialize in farming. The demand for machine services has also increased if agricultural wage and migration rate increased over time, especially among relatively large farms. The results on crop income also support complementarities between rented-in land and machine services (demanded), which implies that scale economies are arising in Chinese agriculture with mechanization and active land rental markets.
•The impacts of policies and other factors on farmers’ adaptation to drought have been analyzed based on household survey.•86% of rural households have taken adaptive measures against drought, most ...of which are non-engineering measures.•Econometric analyses show that provision of early warning information significantly improve farmers’ adaptation ability.•Technical assistance, financial and physical supports significantly improve farmers’ adaptation ability.•Farmers’ adaptation is also associated with social capital and characteristics of households and local communities.
Increasingly severe drought has not only threatened food security but also resulted in massive socio-economic losses. In the face of increasingly serious drought conditions, the question of how to mitigate its impacts through appropriate measures has received great attention. The overall goal of this study is to examine the influence of policies and social capital on farmers’ decisions to adopt adaptation measures against drought. The study is based on a large-scale household and village survey conducted in six provinces nationwide. The survey results show that 86% of rural households have taken adaptive measures to protect crop production against drought, most of which are non-engineering measures. In the case of non-engineering measures, changing agricultural production inputs and adjusting seeding or harvesting dates are two popular options. A multivariate regression analysis reveals that government policy support against drought such as releasing early warning information and post-disaster services, technical assistance, financial and physical supports have significantly improved farmers’ ability to adapt to drought. However, since only 5% of villages benefited from such supports, the government in China still has significant room to implement these assistances. Moreover, having a higher level of social capital in a farm household significantly increases their adaptation capacity against drought. Therefore, the government should pay particular attention to the farming communities, and farmers within a community who have a low level of social capital. Finally, farmers’ ability to adapt to drought is also associated with the characteristics of their households and local communities. The results of this study also have implications for national adaptation plans for agriculture under climate change in other developing countries.
We explore how rice farmers adjust their farm management practices in response to extreme weather events and determine whether their adjustments affect the mean, risk, and downside risk of rice ...yield. Based on a survey of 1,653 rice farmers in China, our econometric analyses show that the severity of drought and flood in the study areas significantly increases the risk and downside risk of rice yield. The applied farm management measures respond to severe drought and flood and can be considered as adaptation to climate change, an issue often ignored in previous studies. We model adaptation and its impact on rice yield for adapters and non-adapters. Utilizing a moment-based approach, we show that adaptation through farm management measures significantly increases rice yield and reduces the risk and downside risk of rice yield. Several policies, including scaling up the cost-effective farm management adaptation and providing public services related to natural disasters, are recommended to improve adaptive capacity of farmers, particular the poor, in response to extreme events.
Rising real wages create an incentive for relatively large landholders to increase their scale of operations allowing them to mechanize and save labor (or to allow farmers to work more off farm). ...Using panel data collected in 2000 and 2008 from 951 farm households in 6 provinces in China, the empirical analysis shows that (i) changes in the willingness to pay to rent in land is systematically related to real off-farm wage growth and the relationship depends on the initial farm size, and (ii) the introduction of machines to substitute for labor became active in the areas where real wages increased fast but was significantly constrained by land size per plot (and the number of plots), that is, land fragmentation. Our results imply that when real wages rapidly increase and labor shortage becomes serious, fragmented land holdings significantly constrain the decision to mechanize and consolidating fragmented lands can lead to higher efficiency through mechanization.
•When real wages rise, farmers need to substitute for labor by machines.•The above substitution requires an increase in farm size to realize scale economies.•In this setup, large farmers have advantage to mechanize.•However, fragmented land holdings significantly constraint the ability to mechanize.
•Population aging can foster the advancement of the rural land rental market by transferring land from older to younger farmers.•The availability of a land tenure certificate increases farmers’ ...participation in the land rental market by improving land tenure security.•Ethnic minority groups are significantly less likely to rent out land.•Altitude of household location negatively impacts on renting out land.
Rural land rental markets in China play an increasingly important role in the transformation of the agricultural sector. This study focuses on the rural land rental market in the Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture in Southern China, a mountainous region, where rapid changes in land use have taken place with the transition from traditional agriculture and a tropical rainforest to rubber monoculture. Notably, we assess the impacts of population aging, land tenure security, and ethnicity on the participation of smallholders in the land rental market. The analysis suggests that a higher proportion of older people in a household increases the likelihood of renting out land and reduces the probability of renting in land, implying that population aging fosters land rental market development by transferring land from older to younger farmers. We also confirm that the availability of a land tenure certificate has a significant and positive impact on the renting out of land. Furthermore, ethnic minority groups are less likely to rent out land, indicating that land rental markets are ethnic sensitive. Additionally, specialization in rubber farming, household wealth and the altitude of household location also influence participation in the land rental market.
Agriculture made major contributions to China’s growth and poverty reduction, but the literature has rarely focused on the institutional factors that might underpin such structural transformation and ...productivity. Drawing on an 8-year panel of 1,200 households in six provinces, we find that land tenure insecurity, measured by past land reallocations, discourages households from quitting agriculture, and the recognition of land rights through formal certificates encourages the temporary migration of rural labor. A sustained increase in nonagricultural opportunities will reinforce the importance of secure land tenure, a precondition for successful structural transformation and continued economic attractiveness of rural areas.
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