Study On The Marginalization Of Arable Land And Its Effects

Since the early 1990s, the phenomena of extensive cultivation such as the decrease of crop sowing area, the reduction of multiple-cropping index and intensity degree have gradually taken place in arable land use from East to West in China. Although there' s increased degree of intensity of arable land use in agricultural area of middle region and west region ever since agricultural tax and fee lessening from 2003 and canceling in 2006, the encouraging effect of enhancing farmers enthusiasm of planting arable land was still insignificant in east region and middle hill region. Basing on the statistical data and 685 farmer field survey data collected from the case study of Tongcheng County (a hilly county in Hubei province), this paper has studied the driving mechanism of arable land use change and its social, economic and environmental effects through cost-benefit analysis, boundary analysis, mathematical statistics, field investigation and eco-service value evaluation method for the purpose of understanding these questions. In the end, the author has put forward some ideas of innovating agricultural land system, rural tax and fee system, household registration system and environment system to advance the net return of arable land use.Firstly, arable land marginalization is considered as a process driven by a combination of social, economical, political and environmental factors; a process that the farmland can not produce net return under an existing land use and socio-economic structure. Arable land marginalization is one of the driving factors of regional arable land use change, with the change of arable land use intensity degree, the change of crop sowing area, the change of land use and land management system as its forms, arable land use change in China is the result of arable land marginalizationSecondly, the main index to diagnose the marginalization of arable land use is net return. According to net return, total return and crop output, arable land marginalization course can be differentiated into three phases of early marginalization, middle marginalization and complete marginalization. Complete marginalization arable land is marginal land. Along with changes of cost factor, price factor as well as nature condition, the three different phases can realize mutual transformation.Thirdly, different types of arable land have different marginalization courses in the same period. From 1985 to 2006, paddy field in Tongcheng County befallened marginalization twice, which cost 9 years; dry land befallened marginalization three times, and the cost was 11 years; the marginalization course of dry land was faster than paddy field. At the same time, the arable land and crop planting area decreased, the multiple-cropping index of arable land use also reduced. Although the degree of intensity of arable land went up, dry land latency degree of intensity went down. Moreover, the increase of arable land degree of intensity ascribed to the thrust of economy development, science and technology advancement and the decrease of arable land, rather than the intrinsic motivation of farmers or the economic vitality of agriculture.Fourthly, the effect of arable land marginalization to food safety and security can be measured through three aspects, namely, crop sowing area decrease, multiple-cropping index of arable land use decrease and arable land abandonment. From 1985 to 2006, the total loss of food in Tongcheng County resulting from crop sowing area decrease is 28720.80 ton, the number of every year is 1305.49 ton; and the total number is 6343.18 ton due to the multiple-cropping of arable land use decrease, the number of every year every ha. arable land is 0.015 ton; the number is 14464.67 ton coming from explicit arable land abandonment; and 478.62 ton, implicit arable land abandonment.Fifthly, arable land marginalization affects arable land management in three aspects: the mode of arable land management; the way of arable land management and the scale of arable land management. When arable land is marginalizing, farmers will change their mode, way and scale of arable land management. Commonly, the procedure of mode change is : contract management - interchange management - fungible management -subcontract management - leasehold management - company and farmer management etc. The way change of arable land management will involve reducing labor, replacing animal power with machine, reducing muck and increasing fertilizer. As to the scale change, large-scale farmers will augment scale and small farmers decrease scale. All these ways can improve arable land use efficiency and reduce the loss coming from arable land marginalization.Sixthly, arable land marginalization and rural labor exodus are interrelated. Arable land marginalization can cause rural labor exodus, and rural labor exodus can quicken arable land marginalization. But arable land marginalization doesn' t have obviously driven function on urbanization.Seventhly, arable land marginalization can depress the value of regional sowing industry as well as the economic benefit of arable land use, decreasing farmer income from sowing industry. Consequently, when arable land is marginalizing, most farmers will search other employment chance and income sources, and they may gain more income from other industry.Eighthly, the ecological environmental effect from arable land marginalization can be seen through the aspects of soil, biological diversity, rural landscape, ecosystem value of arable land and regional ecosystem carrying capacity. In the course of arable land marginalization, when arable land continues to be planted crop, some negative environmental problems, such as soil fertility decreasing, biology diversity cutting down and arable land ecosystem carrying capacity depressing will bring about. While when arable land is abandoned, the effect can be differentiated into two aspects: on one hand, it will cause weed to spread, aggressive species to inbreak, the possibility of fire happening to increase, thus causing the extinction of some species; on the other hand, arable land abandonment can also cause some positive environment effect, for instance, it can cause the increase of soil fertility and species diversity, region total eco-service value and ecosystem carrying capacity can also be advanced.Ninthly, the current agriculture land system, rural tax and fee system, household registration system and environment system all partially hindered the promoting of arable land use return. To increase arable land use return, slow down arable land marginalization speed, reduce the negative effect of arable land marginalization and effectively use marginal land, aforementioned systems, especially agricultural land system should be synthetically innovated. For example, agricultural land system innovation for accelerating arable land conversion should be in line with household registration system innovation for quickening the non-agricultural employment of farmers and citizenization of migrant workers. Agriculture land system innovation for advancing arable land return should go with rural tax and fee system innovation for reducing farmers' burden, standardizing the construction and management of public production in rural area, plus environment system innovation for inspiriting farmers to use arable land for agricultural purpose. All correlative system innovations work in effect, better system innovation performance will appear.