Study On The Delimitation And Management Of County-Level Basic Farmland

The land is the most basic condition for humanity’s survival and development, the cultivated land is the most important land resource, and the basic farmland is the most important type of cultivated land. A nation’s food security depends on protection of its cultivated land, and particularly its basic farmland. In the delimitation of basic farmland, the traditional approach generally emphasized the quality of the farmland, while ignoring the site conditions of the land which affects the sustainability and stability of its utilization, often resulting in frequent changes to the delimitation, or in worse cases, necessitates idling of the farmland. This threatens the legal effectiveness of the national land planning, and poses a danger to our essential food security. This study takes the principles of the basic farmland definition,"high-quality, high-concentration, permanence, and stability" as a starting point, drawing lessons from the United States’ Land Evaluation and Site Assessment (LESA) system, and attempts to construct a basic farmland selection and evaluation system based on both quality and site conditions, which can ensure the delimited basic farmlands to conform to the principles, and allow the permanent and continuous utilization and protection of basic farmland given proper technological and institutional measures.The basic farmland selection and evaluation system includes two subsystems, cultivated land quality and site condition. The quality criteria consist mainly of soil and other natural factors, while accommodating for the output level of the land, establishing a connection between the results of the earlier agricultural land classification and the Second National Land Survey, and using the grades of utilization to represent quality of cultivated lands. The site conditions criteria consist of the degree of cultivated land concentration, the farming radius, and the possibility of urban expansion. The general model of basic farmland evaluation is:Fij=axFi+bxFj (a+b=1).Empirical research was conducted using ArcGIS10and the quality and site conditions data on cultivated land from Qianjiang City. An1:2model of Qianjiang basic farmland selection and evaluation was constructed. The results indicate that83.79%of Qianjiang’s cultivated land is eligible for basic farmland, and quality and site conditions have different degrees of influence on the selection of basic farmland in different regions.The permanent and continuous usage of basic farmland requires the support of technologies and institutions in addition to consideration for both quality and site conditions. This paper provides a summary of basic farmland management and protection methods with regards to both aspects. The technological aspect focuses on monitoring changes to land quality, and utilizing efficient information-based management. The institutional aspect focuses on policies in the administrative, economic and legal dimensions, with emphasis on the protection and compensation system of basic farmland, which is consistent with the principle of reform:"let the market decide the allocation of resources, and let the government play its role better."...