Influence Of Social Network On Grassland Transfer Behaviors Of Herdsmen

As a supplement to the existing grassland contract management system in China,grassland transfer plays an important role in protecting grassland ecological environment,reducing grassland fragmentation,adjusting the industrial structure of pasture areas,optimizing the allocation of resource factors,and improving the income level of herding households.For a long time,China has provided many legal protections and policy support for the transfer of pasture contract management rights,but some studies have shown that the participation rate of pasture transfer among herders is still lower than that of farmland transfer among farmers.As the direct decision makers of pastureland transfer,exploring the factors influencing their transfer behavior can provide a realistic basis for improving the development of pastureland transfer market.China’s rural society is a typical relational society,and thousands of years of herding history have naturally formed a social network of mutual trust and reciprocity among herders in pastoral areas based on kinship,local and ethnic ties.In recent years,with the implementation of pastureland rights and herders’ settlement projects,the traditional nomadic way of herders has gradually evolved into settled life,and a more stable and larger relationship network has been formed among herding households.The economic behavior decisions of individual herding households are influenced by the embedded social networks.Compared with agricultural areas,pastoralist areas are more closed,and herding households rely more on the information and resources provided by social networks.At the same time,pastoralists as members of social networks can easily and skillfully obtain information and exchange resources through the network and apply them to the grass flow.Therefore,the study of herding households’ grassland transfer behavior based on the perspective of social networks is consistent with the actual situation of the special geographical environment of pastoral areas,and can also give fuller play to the positive effects of social networks on herding households’ grassland transfer behavior.Based on combing existing literature and research results,this paper analyzes the theoretical mechanism of the influence of social networks on herders’ grassland transfer behavior by combining social network theory,information asymmetry theory,and land property rights theory.The specific transfer behavior can be subdivided into two stages,the first stage is whether to transfer and the second stage is the transfer area,the social network mainly influences herding households’ grassland transfer behavior through two ways:information exchange and resource acquisition.Based on field research data from Gonghe County,Qinghai Province,we used social network analysis to construct herding households’ information exchange network and resource acquisition network,and analyzed the characteristics of the two types of networks formed by herding households in two dimensions:overall network and individual network.In this study,the values of herding households’ network structure based on individual networks were used to empirically investigate the influence of social networks on herding households’ propensity and intensity of participation in grassland transfer.Based on the above study,the following conclusions were drawn:(1)the market for grassland transfer in the study area is not well developed,and social networks are conducive to the regulation of herding households’ grassland transfer behavior.(2)The information exchange network with information transfer as the main function has a significant positive impact on the inflow and outflow of pastureland,and has a positive and significant impact on the area of inflow pastureland,but no significant impact on the area of outflow pastureland.(3)The resource acquisition network with resource utilization as the main function had a significant positive effect on the inflow and outflow of pasture for herding households,and had no significant effect on the inflow area of pasture,but had a positive effect on the outflow area of pasture.Based on the above findings,the following policy recommendations are proposed to improve the participation rate of herding households in grassland transfer and to improve the development of grassland transfer market in Qinghai Province:(1)Strengthen the construction of social networks in herding areas and enhance the interaction and communication among herding households.(2)Give full play to the influence of key nodes.(3)Develop a formal system to improve the grass flow market.