The Economic Impact Of Grain For Green Project To Households In Western Rejions

Since the Grain for Green Project began in2000, more than twenty millionfarmers’ vital interests have been involved. From the beginning of the implementationof this project, the State has determined to ensure the improvement of the ecologicalenvironment as well as increasing farmers’ income level, which is set as the goal ofreturning farmland to forest. After ten years, the Grain for Green Project has entered theachievement consolidation phase, and the impact on farmers’ income directlydetermines the project’s future direction. Therefore, this paper studies the economiceffect of Grain for Green Project on western farmers through empirical analysis.The paper adopts the field research data from western regions and uses acombination of qualitative and quantitative analysis to study the income change offarmers, and get to the following conclusions.First, we get three main impact factors of the project on farmers’ income throughqualitative analysis. Whether the subsidies can compensate for the opportunity cost tothe farmers’ participation, the project can improve the transfer of farmer labor, and thegains of farmland can cover the cost, or not.Secondly, the change of income and its structure of farmers have been derivedfrom the horizontal and vertical empirical research. From the vertical perspective, thefarmland farmers get a substantial increase in revenue in2012compared to2006, andthe income structure has also been adjusted, that changes from relying on planting as themain income to working for others as the main source of income. From the horizontalview, there is no significant difference in the total revenue between farmland farmersand non-farmland farmers,while the structure has not remarkably improved. Returningfarmland to forest is not a necessary condition to income increase and farmer industrialrestructuring. It did not effectively promote farmers’ income and improve the industrialstructure.Finally, it’s derived that returning farmland to forest is responsible for farmers’income suppression as well as hindering workforce structure improvement, byanalyzing subsidies for farmers, labor transfer and farmland proceeds. Subsidiescannot compensate for the opportunity cost of farmers’ participation. The project has notled to the labor force, which is produced by it, to transfer to the cities, but remained inagriculture usage due to managing the abandoned farmland. Farmers’ revenue obtained from farmland on the ground is low owing to backward technology and poormanagement. That is to say although the gain from farmland can compensate for themanagement and protection cost, it couldn’t offset the opportunity cost of agriculturallabor.In short, the state’s goal of income increase and structural adjustment has not beenachieved by returning farmland to forest policy, which is not a necessary factor topromote the transfer of rural labor force. In other words, the Grain to Green Policy haslittle effect on the objective of increasing farmers’ income through transfer of rural laborforce, industrial restructuring and direct subsidy.