Study On The Protection And Promotion Of Cultivated Land In China

Since the birth of mankind,arable land resources have provided the most basic spatial conditions for the survival and development of mankind.After mankind enters agricultural civilization,arable land has become the most basic means of production for agriculture,which meets the nutritional needs of human survival and development.For a long period of time in the future,the progress of science and technology is still difficult to ensure that human beings are independent of cultivated land products.Therefore,the protection of cultivated land remains an important issue that cannot be evaded in contemporary economic research.Over the past four decades of reform and opening up,the level of industrialization and urbanization in China has been rapidly improved.On the one hand,the inertia of “path dependence” has continued to a great extent.The manifestation of the unbalanced development between agriculture and industry,rural and urban areas has changed.That is to say,it is usual to sacrifice agriculture and rural areas for the development of industry and urban areas in the past,among which industrial and agricultural price scissors is the most commonly used method.However,nowadays urbanization that needs high-land consumption in rural areas turns to be the main means;at the same time,the low returns of agriculture and weak social awareness of the overall environment have led to a series of problems such as a continuous decline in the quantity and quality of cultivated land in our country,and the problems of grain security and food safety,which have become important factors constraining the simultaneous development of China’s “new five” and building a well-off society in an all-round way.On the other hand,arable land protection has always been a basic national policy of our country.The report of the 19 th National Congress of the Communist Party of China further emphasizes: “We must adhere to the basic national policy of saving resources and protecting the environment,and treat the ecological environment like life.” The latest statistics in 2016 show that of the 9.678 billion mu of agricultural land in China,there are only 2.224 billion mu of cultivated land,and the overall level of cultivated land quality is not high,and the excellent cultivated land only accounts for 27.3% of the total cultivated land areas.This shows that the protection and improvement of the quality of cultivated land in China cannot be delayed.Therefore,the realization of the protection and promotion of cultivated land quality will not only help solve the grain security,food safety,and environmental issues in China at present,but will also contribute to the long-term success of coordinated economic and social development.The protection and promotion of arable land quality is a "new epoch theory" that is worth discussing and exploring.As China’s economy has entered a new normal and socialism with Chinese characteristics has entered a new era,the principal contradiction facing Chinese society has evolved,which change from“the gap between the ever-growing material and cultural needs of the people and the low level of social production” to “the contradiction between unbalanced and inadequate development and the people’s ever-growing needs for a better life”.The change of the principal contradiction has two impacts on the quality of cultivated land: First,the people’s living standards have improved.For the vast majority of the people,feeding is no longer a problem.What is more important is how to eat well,that is,to eat green,non-polluting agricultural products.This will inevitably require China to further improve the quality of cultivated land and provide the necessary production basis for healthy agricultural products.On the other hand,the imbalance in the development of our country is not only reflected in the economic aspects,that is,the unbalanced development of urban and rural economy and the imbalance in regional economic development.More specifically,rural areas,agriculture,and peasants lag behind.Comparing to the east,the development of the central and western regions are still insufficient.It is also reflected that there is a certain degree of imbalance and insufficiency of economic development,social development and human development.When it comes to the problem of cultivated land,there are also imbalances between the quantity and quality relating to the protection of cultivated land,the insufficient supply of medium and high-quality arable land,inadequate ecological environment treatment,and its mismatch with high-quality growth and development of the economy.What’s more,from the perspective of economic growth and development,the focus of China’s economic development has shifted to the quality of economic growth,and agriculture,as the foundation of the national economy,will inevitably bear the brunt of it,and agriculture cannot develop without high-quality arable land,which requires us to improve the quality of cultivated land.In addition,China’s labor and production technologies have made great progress.This also requires that arable land be matched with these advanced factors of production to achieve further balance.Based on the basic principles of Marxist historical materialism and political economy,using Marx’s Political Economics and the relevant theory of western economics and analysis tools,the paper explores the intrinsic formation mechanism behind the contradiction of the rapid growth of China’s GDP,the promotion of arable land protection and the strong decline in the quality of cultivated land,and the causes of the inefficient operation of the existing cultivated land protection system and provide some suggestions for the future construction of our country’s cultivated land quality protection and promotion mechanism in order to make some efforts and contribution to realize the sustainable development of the harmonious coexistence of population,resources,and the environment.The thesis is divided into 8 chapters,of which chapters 2,3,4 and 5 are the core contents of the thesis:The first chapter is introduction.It mainly explains the research background,research significance and research purpose of the paper,clarifies the core concept of the article,sorts out related research literatures at home and abroad,and makes a brief evaluation.It also determines the research ideas and methods,and points out possible innovations and deficiencies in this paper.The second chapter is the relevant theoretical basis and theoretical analysis framework.The first section summarizes the related theories of Marxist political economy,the related theories of classical and neoclassical economics,and the related theories of the new institutional economics.It also summarizes the internal relations between the theories and the themes of this study.The second section constructs a general theoretical analysis framework for the protection and promotion mechanism of cultivated land quality,that is,the use of Marx’s materialist dialectics methodology in the thinking of“existence-consciousness-behavior” and “productivity and production relations,economic foundation and superstructure”.The logical and research framework is based on the theoretical logic chain of “presence(environmental analysis)-behavior(action selection)-mode(achievement)” to construct a logical analysis framework that can explain the protection and promotion of cultivated land quality.Chapters 3,4 and 5 in the latter part of the paper are the analysis and application of this theoretical analysis framework.The third chapter is the environmental analysis of the protection and improvement of cultivated land quality in China.In practice,the protection and promotion of cultivated land quality requires internal and external environments to create conditions for it.This is also a realistic motive for the protection and promotion of farmland quality.In this part,it is carried out from two levels: the natural and technological environment(productivity dimension),the system,and the economic and social environment(production relationship and its economic basis and superstructure dimension).Among them,the natural environment mainly refers to the changes in natural conditions such as climate and soil;the economic and social environment mainly includes the rapid development of industrialization and urbanization,and the actual needs of grain security and food safety;the institutional environment covers the economic base and the changes and developments of institutions,rural taxation and fees system,compensation system for arable land acquisition and other formal systems,and the deepening of the government’s development philosophy,the increasing soaring demand for social environment.These three aspects of the external environment and its internal different components will have favorable or unfavorable impacts on the protection and promotion of cultivated land quality,which will determine the behavior choices of different subjects in the next chapter.The fourth chapter analyzes the behavior of the protection and promotion of cultivated land quality in China.First,on the basis of stakeholder theories,stakeholders of cultivated land quality protection and promotion were identified,and the protection and promotion of cultivated land quality concerns the government(central government and local governments),rural collective economic organizations,and new agricultural production.There are many types of subjects,such as business entities and social third party entities.Second,starting from the interest objectives and behavior choices of the central government and local governments,the differences in interest between the central government and local governments are clarified,and the dual actions of the local governments in the protection and promotion of cultivated land quality are clarified.Third,an important reason for the quality of cultivated land is the “hollowing out” of rural collective economic organizations.This is mainly due to the further weakening of rural collective economic control after the rural tax and fee reform in 2006,and the protection and improvement of farmland quality in rural collective economic organizations.The interest sharing mechanism is increasingly lacking and it is difficult to form collective actions.Fourth,the subject of agricultural operations and production has a limited rationality.With the goal of increasing income,the cost-income analysis is the logic of decision-making,and fundamentally lacking the internal power of arable land quality protection and promotion.Fifth,the public’s awareness of environmental protection is increasingly awakened,and the demand for a good ecological environment is rising.Although it does not necessarily have direct contact with cultivated land,it is often linked to the protection and improvement of farmland quality through food safety issues.In view of this,the status,level and even degree of the protection and promotion of cultivated land quality are all affected by the above-mentioned multi-type main body’s shared interests.The realization of their respective interests is related to the degree of fit between the common interests.Therefore,based on the timely adjustments and reforms of the production relations,economic foundations,and superstructure,institutional arrangements,institutional innovations,formal systems,and informal institutions affect the economic and social environment,leveraging on various incentive and restraint mechanisms.The behavior of the stakeholders is guided through institutional guarantees and promotes the coherence of benefits among all stakeholders.Therefore,when we carry out institutional arrangements and institutional designs for the protection and promotion of cultivated land quality in China,we should use the interests of all parties as the basis to dig out the collection of private interest and common interests of all stakeholders in a hierarchical and multi-perspective manner so as to reconstruct socially compatible interests.The fifth chapter is the analysis of the way to protect and enhance the quality of cultivated land in China,that is,what kind of methods are adopted by various actors to achieve the protection and promotion of cultivated land quality.Specifically,first,we must further improve the superstructure system,further strengthen the government’s green development concept,deepen the assessment system of local governments with green GDP as their core,establish a sound legal and regulatory system for the protection and promotion of cultivated land quality and re-comb the relationship between government and market in cultivated land quality protection and promotion in order to organically combine the role of market mechanism with government regulation,and further strengthen the implementation and supervision of the policy of the protection and promotion of arable land quality.Second,rural collective economic organizations play an important role in the protection and promotion of farmland quality.Rural collective assets are the economic foundation of rural collective economic organizations.We need to explore the effective forms of rural collective economic organizations under the market economy and the ways financial support for agriculture converted into rural collective assets to form and expand rural collective assets,thereby expanding the rural collective economic organizations,so as to better play their backbone role in the protection and promotion of cultivated land quality.Thirdly,restructuring the interest incentive and restraint mechanisms of agricultural production and management entities.From the perspective of internal agriculture,it means to develop ecological agriculture vigorously and organically combine the protection and promotion of cultivated land quality with the green development of agriculture so as to achieve coordinated development;From an external perspective of agriculture,due to comparatively low returns from agriculture,the government needs to increase related subsidies.In addition,necessary constraints should be imposed on possible arable land destruction.Fourth,further cultivating the public’s environmental protection,especially the awareness of the protection and promotion of the quality of cultivated land,and giving full play to the supervision role of the public.Finally,based on the above analysis,we tried to achieve coordinated governance of the three centers of“government,market,and society”.The government dimension mainly includes the central and local governments.The market dimensions mainly include the main body of agricultural production and management,and the social dimensions mainly include the rural collective economic organizations,NGO organizations,and the public.Chapter six: China’s Cultivated Land Quality Protection and Promotion: A Historical Evolution Perspective.From the perspective of historical development,we studied the development process of China’s cultivated land quality protection and promotion since 1949.Overall,China’s arable land quality protection and improvement has undergone incomplete inverted “S” dynamic adjustments of“Care and Improvement—Maintaining and Utilizing—Abandonment and Deterioration — Containment and Maintenance — Protection and Promotion”.The process is incomplete because the ascending stage is still in the process of formation and development.The specific performance of the five stages are as follows: The first phase is the stage of love and improvement of arable land quality from 1949 to 1978.Among them,1949-1952 is the restoration and protection period of farmland quality.On the one hand,repair the damage of the farmland caused by the long war and the landowner’s production methods.On the other hand,the majority of the poor have obtained arable land through land reform,so they pay more attention to and more cherish the land quality during their production process;the period of improvement of public goods properties of arable land quality was established in 1953-1978,the establishment of the people’s commune has gradually strengthened the rural collective economy.The rural collective economy has carried out a large number of basic farmland water conservancy constructions and has done some basic work for the protection and promotion of farmland quality.The second stage is the stage of maintaining and utilizing cultivated land quality from 1978 to 1984.At this stage,the public goods attributes of cultivated land quality were destroyed,but the personal property of cultivated land quality was improved.Overall,the quality of cultivated land was in an overall maintenance and utilization phases.The third stage is the stage of abandonment and deterioration of cultivated land quality from 1985 to 2005.During this period,the quality of cultivated land in private goods and public goods experience different degrees of deterioration.The fourth stage is the phase of deterrence and maintenance of cultivated land quality from 2006 to 2010.With the abolition of the agricultural tax in 2006,the further weakening of the collective economy has exacerbated the destruction of public goods properties of cultivated land quality,but the value of cultivated land has begun to appear,and farmers have paid more attention to the protection and promotion of the quality of cultivated land with “quasi-ownership”.The fifth stage is the stage of protection and promotion of cultivated land quality from 2011 to present.During this period,the main parties of the multi-sector joint efforts to achieve the protection and improvement of the quality of cultivated land in China.Subsequently,based on the time series data and the provincial cross-section data,the necessary performance evaluation was carried out for the quality protection and promotion policy of cultivated land in China.The seventh chapter illustrates the experience of the protection and improvement of cultivated land quality in developed countries.The United States,the representative of the large-scale agriculture,and Japan,the representative of small-scale agriculture,and Israel,which is distinctive in the protection and promotion of its cultivated land,are selected as research samples.The main measures for the protection and promotion of the quality of cultivated land are analyzed,and the main features of each country are refined,hoping to provide the enlightenment for the protection and improvement of the quality of cultivated land in our country.The eighth chapter is the policy suggestion section.This part mainly summarizes the main research conclusions of this article,puts forward feasible policy suggestions,and looks forward to feasible follow-up research of this paper.The paper may have the following three points of innovations:(1)Rethinking and defining the attributes of cultivated land quality.The quality of cultivated land has the dual attributes of private goods and public goods.The attribute of private goods refers to the land quality and space quality within the scope of privately contracted cultivated land.The public goods property refers to the project quality and ecological environment quality outside the scope of privately contracted cultivated land.According to this new definition,the new development and protection methods for the protection and promotion of cultivated land quality in our country have been newly considered and elaborated.It is further found that sustainable development makes the protection and improvement of cultivated land quality both awe-inspiring and conforming to the natural laws and using the cyclical forces of the natural environment to make natural ecosystems have continuous capacity and tension;it is also based on“population—resources— The recognition of the value of the environmental chain as a whole is more related to the importance of constructing human generational development,the value and significance of the harmonious coexistence relationship between resources and the environment,and comprehensive recognition of the protection of cultivated land quality and the promotion of multi-level values.Theoretically,it provides a theoretical basis for the protection and improvement of cultivated land quality and closer contact with population,resources,and the environment to achieve sustainable development.In practice,it comprehensively integrates the protection and improvement of cultivated land quality into all aspects of socio-economic development and the whole process.Provide policy basis.(2)This paper uses Marx’s analysis method to construct an analysis paradigm of "environment-behavior-method",and demonstrates the reasons for protecting and promoting the quality of cultivated land from the perspective of methodology.A logical framework for the realization and protection of farmland quality was established and a detailed and systematic study on the protection and promotion of cultivated land quality from a social science perspective was formed.From the three organically constituted research systems of environmental analysis,behavior analysis and mode analysis,the general realization mechanism and concrete realization process,the close integration of theory and reality,and the mechanism of farmland quality protection and promotion were studied.(3)To compensate for the existing policy performance evaluation of farmland protection quality,using the method of data envelopment analysis to systematically evaluate the policy performance of China’s arable land quality protection and promotion,and point out the historical evolution,regional differences and existing problems of China’s arable land quality protection and improvement policy performance,and thus provide empirical support for the improvement and optimization of the policies of the protection and promotion of cultivated land to a certain extent.