Changes in Utilization of Contracted Land in Xundian County of Yunnan Province in the Background of Poverty Alleviation

Chenhao LU, Zisheng YANG

Institute of Land & Resources and Sustainable Development, Yunnan University of Finance and Economics, Kunming 650221, China

Abstract The gradual migration of rural population to cities is an inevitable result of the sustainable development of China’s society and economy. Going out to work is not only a personal behavior of farmers in line with this historical trend, and in the present moment, it is also an important measure to win the battle against poverty. Xundian Yi and Hui Autonomous County is located in the northeast of Yunnan Province. It is one of the key counties in China’s poverty alleviation and development work. Through the implementation of special measures to increase labor income, a total of 125 611 rural laborers were employed from 2014 to 2018, and as a result, a large number of farmers have been lifted out of poverty. However, under this model, the transfer of a large number of rural laborers also has an impact on the utilization of contracted land of migrant households, mainly demonstrated by land abandonment, decline in land use efficiency and decline in land productivity, which are not conducive to the sustainable use and protection of land resources. To this end, based on field research, this article analyzes the changes in the utilization of land of migrant households under the poverty alleviation model of working outside, as well as their impact. In addition, the questionnaire survey of the registered poverty-stricken households show that the area and productivity of land owned by households with migrant workers are on a downward trend compared to those before and those of households without migrant workers. Land transfer is a feasible means to solve this problem and to consolidate the achievements of poverty alleviation and sustainable use of land resources. It is suggested that great attention should be paid to the contract and management issue of land left by migrant households, establishment of efficient guarantee mechanism, improvement of land utilization and promotion of saving and intensive use of land resources to bring the land resources to their proper value.

Key words Targeted poverty alleviation, Labor migration, Rural land use, Land transfer, Xundian Hui and Yi Autonomous County

1 Introduction

Since the launch of targeted poverty alleviation and development in China, under the assistance of government, many registered poverty-stricken households have gone out to work to improve their living conditions and realize the goal that poor people have no worry about food and clothing and have access to compulsory education, basic medical services, and safe housing. Their income has exceeded the national poverty threshold, eventually getting rid of poverty. This fully shows the important role of working outside to increase income in targeted poverty alleviation. However, it is undeniable that poverty reduction through this model will produce certain impact on the use of contracted land of migrant households, such as land abandonment, decline in land productivity, decline in land use efficiency and cooperative bankruptcy. An important factor triggering these problems is that when labor is transferred from rural to urban areas, the population carried by the contracted land of migrant households has changed, but the use of land itself has not changed to a suitable use under new conditions. Therefore, it is necessary to pay attention to this problem and propose countermeasures to adapt to changes in the population and avoid further intensification of the conflict between man and land. This is related to whether China can maintain long-term stable economic growth and sustainable development.

Land use refers to that human beings adopt a series of biological and technical means according to certain economic and social purposes and carry out long-term or cyclical management and transformation of land according to the national characteristics of land[1-2]. The incomparable importance and particularity of land use research and the urgent needs of countries to implement sustainable development and sustainable land use strategies require academic circles to conduct in-depth research and discussion on the construction and development of land use disciplines, to provide strong theoretical and technical support for the sustainable land use and economic and social development of China[3]. In the short term, the outflow of rural labor forces has had an adverse impact on land use due to the inadequate land transfer system and mechanism, and land abandonment and land productivity decline have occurred. This article studies the situation under local, short-term and specific objects. Compared with previous studies, it pays more attention to farmers who have gotten rid of poverty through going out to work as migrant workers. This helps to understand the external effects of the poverty alleviation process, consolidate the effectiveness of targeted poverty alleviation and development, and better use and protect land resources, thereby providing a reference for achieving a win-win situation between land use and targeted poverty alleviation.

Xundian Hui and Yi Autonomous County (hereinafter referred to as Xundian County) (102°41′-103°33′ E, 25°20′-26°01′ N) is located in the northeast of Yunnan Province. It belongs to one of the 38 contiguous development counties in the Wumeng Mountain Region of China. It is a county under the jurisdiction of Kunming City, Yunnan Province, crossing the Jinsha River and Nanpan River basins. According to the second national land survey, China’s total land area was 3 588.38 km2. In 2014, the county’s poverty incidence was 26.93%. After years of targeted poverty alleviation work, at the end of 2017, the incidence of poverty in the county dropped to 0.35%, so it began to be lifted out of poverty first in the province. The achievements of poverty alleviation have been continuously stabilized. In 2018, the incidence of poverty dropped to 0.25%. There are many factors for achieving such outstanding achievements. Among them, the successful practice of the poverty alleviation model of working outside has played an important role. Choosing Xundian County as an example to study the changes in the utilization of contracted land of migrant households and their causes have high value. First, the county is a state-level impoverished county that integrates "mountain, minority, oldness, agriculture and poverty". It is representative of the nature of the impoverished county in many ways. Second, the county is dominated by mountains, and has very little high-quality land, so it is very important in land protection. Third, the county is located in the upper reaches of the Yangtze River, and it has attached importance to ecological protection to prevent soil erosion, which requires sustainable use of land. Fourth, the county has a mature and popular practice on the poverty alleviation model of going out to work as migrant workers, and the effectiveness is very good. The research is more related to the increase in labor income and poverty reduction and land use.

2 Practice and achievements of poverty alleviation for migrant workers in Xundian County

On April 17, 2017, the party committee office and the people’s government office of the county issued theImplementationPlanforIncreasingMigrantWorkers’IncomeforPovertyAlleviationin2017(Xun Ban Tong[2017]26), which requires the party committees (party working committees) and governments (offices) of the townships (streets) and relevant units to implement this accordingly. The promulgation of the plan played an important role in the smooth and high-level poverty alleviation of Xundian County in 2017, and laid the foundation for the subsequent consolidation of the effectiveness and practices of poverty alleviation through working outside to increase income.

Xundian County has adopted working outside to increase income as a special poverty alleviation model. In public leadership, measure system and security system, it has effectively ensured the effectiveness of working outside in poverty alleviation. First, it needs to promote from the source, train farmers in labor skills to improve their competiveness, and to lay the foundation for employment. Second, it should split rural labor training and transfer employment targets to individuals at the branch level and above and promote the comprehensive advancement of export work through leadership, driving and demonstration. Third, it should mobilize comprehensively, publicize targetedly, and emancipate the farmers’ mind. Fourth, it should carry out differentiated training. According to the farmers’ needs and their own conditions, targeted training is conducted. Fifth, it can implement counterpart assistance to build a bridge for the transfer of laborers between Xundian County and working sites and make the channels for going out to work more spacious. Sixth, it should conduct research and data statistics and analysis to make poverty alleviation more targeted.

3 Impact of poverty alleviation for migrant workers on farmers’ contracted land utilization

From a population perspective, the poverty alleviation model of working outside has transformed the original agricultural labor force into a non-agricultural labor force, and overall, agricultural land is transferred into non-agricultural land. Due to the transfer of population, interventions in agricultural and non-agricultural land will produce new results, so land use changes. Contracted land is the carrier of agricultural production. Since most of the migrant households have not released their land contracting rights, this population transfer produces an impact on land use. Land, labor and capital are the three basic factors of the land use process. As the overall economic environment remains stable, these three factors play a decisive role in the results produced by land use. Combining the specific situation and problems of the poverty alleviation model of working outside in Xundian County, the three factors are analyzed at the following three different levels[4].

3.1Impactofchangesinproductionfactorinputsontheutilizationoffarmers’contractedlandFirst, the impact of labor transfer on land use is direct. In particular, the quality of labor has changed significantly. Most of the migrant workers are young and middle-aged, and the majority of those who take up the jobs left behind are the elderly and women, and even some school-age children in farm households are also engaged in agricultural production. Therefore, the decline in labor input is very obvious. Second, as young and middle-aged laborers withdraw from agricultural production, agricultural technology inputs will also decline. This is because the original machinery, fertilizers, pesticides and other technologies used in farming activities are not skilled, or some technologies cannot be used in agricultural production due to cultural level and physical fitness of labor force. Third, as the quality of the labor force engaged in agricultural production has decreased, the demand for the use of hardware facilities such as agricultural machinery and equipment has been reduced. What’s more, variable capital investment has been reduced. Finally, due to the decline in investment in hardware such as agricultural technology and machinery, funds for agricultural production have also reduced accordingly.

In addition to the negative effects mentioned above, inputs of production factors also have positive effects. For example, some peasant households are rich in labor force. Some of the laborers go out to work to improve their living conditions, and the money they make will be brought into their homes and invested into developing economic crops by the laborers left behind, making land use more sufficient and land productivity increase.

3.2Impactofchangesinfarmers’subjectivewishesontheutilizationofcontractedlandAnalysis from the perspective of input of production factors is an economic idea. But actually, this is not the ideal situation, because farmers not only think about production, they also consider family and social issues, which directly or indirectly affect the farming choices.

First, the income gap between farming and working outside produces an impact on farmers’ willingness to work in agriculture. Although working outside may reduce the income from farming, but generally, the total income is increased. In this sense, giving up farming can yield higher returns. The vast majority of peasant households do not have the consciousness of protecting cultivated land. Second, keeping land management right after going out to work is to prevent the risk of working outside[5]. Farmers are reluctant to abandon agricultural land in order to prevent the risk of working outside, so they still retain the rights to land contract and management. Third, family factors have an impact on farmers’ willingness to work in agriculture. The impact of family factors on land use is both positive (e.g. elderly people in poor health need to be taken care of) and negative (e.g. migrant workers bring their children and wives into the cities where they work to make children better educated, but the elderly have to be left behind). Fourth, the living and farming habits of peasants have a positive impact on land use. Although some rural households have high incomes from working outside and whether or not farming has almost no effect on total income, they are still willing to cultivate a part of the land, especially the elderly. In rural areas, farming is a habit of farmers, and it is an integral part of their lives.

3.3Impactofthepovertyalleviationpolicysystemontheutilizationoffarmers’contractedlandThe poverty alleviation policy has a great impact on the use of contracted land of migrant households, especially in the areas of industrial development, road construction, returning farmland to forest, relocation,etc. The utilization of agricultural land by households with migrant workers has changed due to the implementation of the poverty alleviation policy.

On the one hand, the implementation of the policy has accelerated the conversion of agricultural population to non-agricultural population. Policy promotion is limited by rigidities such as time, place of work and conditions of work. Some farmers go out to work without thinking about it. A survey of Xundian County found that poverty alleviation through supporting working outside had an index assessment for each cadre, thus the cadres have the motivation to mobilize farmers to work outside, but the allocation of working opportunities may be unmatched with the needs of farmers. As a result, farmers who did not go out to work begin to go out to work, which has a greater impact on land use and also caused many problems in policy implementation.

On the other hand, there is no interaction mechanism between the policy of poverty alleviation through supporting working outside and the policy of industrial development. There is no interaction between industrial development and farmers’ contract land policies. More farmers still retain the right to contract even if they abandon the land. If through land transfer, the idle land left by migrant households is used for industrial development, the better results will be obtained, and it will be more conducive to saving and intensive use of land, allowing land to exert higher value.

4 Empirical study on the changes in utilization of farmers’ contracted land under the poverty alleviation model of working outside

Cultivated land is an important part of farmers’ contracted land. The use and protection of cultivated land are directly related to national food security, as well as the development of the county’s agricultural economy and the basic guarantee of people’s lives[6]. With the continuous development of the economy and society, the speed of non-agriculturalization of cultivated land has accelerated, so that the amount of cultivated land is constantly decreasing. Meanwhile, people’s irrational and inadequate use of cultivated land has caused damage to cultivated land ecosystem. Paying attention to the use and protection of cultivated land is not only a matter of land use, and it is more an issue whether the economy can be developed sustainably. In addition, cultivated land accounts for a large proportion of agricultural land. More households are involved. The production cycle of cultivated land is often shorter than that of garden land and forest land. The cost of entering and exiting the business is low. In a short-term period, the changes in utilization of cultivated land are more obvious and representative. Therefore, cultivated land was selected for survey.

4.1SurveyandresearchmethodsThis study adopts sampling survey method. Questionnaire survey was conducted among households with and without migrant workers in Xundian County. The status of land use of households with and without migrant workers was analyzed comprehensively, and the causes for data differences were inferred. The land abandoned by migrant households was compared with the willingness of non-migrant households who want to use the land. The value of use of the abandoned land through land transfer was obtained. The improving effect of the value when used in targeted poverty alleviation was estimated.

4.2SamplingmethodandresultsIn order to ensure the reliability of the samples and the stronger correlation between the production and life of the surveyed farmers and their working outside, with the support of the Human Resources and Social Security Bureau of Xundian County, 180 poverty-free households were randomly selected from 5 towns (Jinsuo Street, Gongshan Town, Hekou Town, Qixing Town and Diansha Township) of Xundian County. Among them, Diansha Township is remote, while Hekou Town and Qixing Town are near the downtown area with good economic foundation. This paper studies the changes in the utilization of contracted land and their causes. The households surveyed were divided into household with migrant workers and households without migrant workers. The information of the two groups of households surveyed is shown in Table 1.

Table1Basicinformationofhouseholdssurveyed

GroupNumber ofhouseholdsPopulationNumber of migrantworkersNumber of administrativevillagesNumber of villagersgroupsHouseholds with migrant workers90339150614Households without migrant workers 903450517

4.3ChangesinutilizationoflandofhouseholdswithmigrantworkersThe changes in the area and productivity of land of the 90 households with migrant workers were calculated. Based on the changes in the area and productivity of land, each household was marked, and the population was recorded (Table 2). As shown in Table 2, among the households with migrant workers, the changes in the utilization of their land were dominated by decline in area and decline in productivity. There were total 31 households of which area and productivity both declined, accounting for 34.4%. There were total 58 persons of which at least one indicator (including two indicators) declined, accounting for 64%. There were 25 households with the two indicators unchanged, accounting for 27.8%. There were 20 households of which at least one indicator (including two indicators) increased, accounting for 22.2%. In short, the area and productivity of households with migrant workers declined after labor transfer, indicating that the overall negative impact of labor transfer on the utilization of land of households with migrant workers was stronger than the positive impact.

4.4Comparativeanalysisoflandutilizationbetweenmigranthouseholdsandnon-migranthouseholdsIn order to have a deeper understanding on the changes in utilization of land of households with migrant workers, in addition to analyzing the changes in land use before and after their migration, their land use status should also be compared with that of households without migrant workers. In this article, while investigating land use changes of households with migrant workers, 90 nearby households without migrant workers were also selected for investigation. In order to better understand the land use of the two types of households, the area of cultivated land per capita was divided into low (A), medium (B) and high (C) levels, and the specific situation and other indicators are shown in Table 3. The following conclusions can be drawn from the statistical results.

Table2Countingofpeoplefromhouseholdswithmigrantworkerswithareaandproductivityoflandchanged

ItemLand productivityincreaseLand productivityunchangedLand productivitydeclineLand area increase003Land area unchanged72511Land area decline10331

Table3Statisticsofvariousindicatorsbetweenhouseholdswithandwithoutmigrantworkers

IndexHouseholds with migrant workersMeanMedianHouseholds without migrant workersMeanMedianRemarksLand productivity∥yuan/ha14 237.26(variance 271 422 209.5 yuan2/ha2)11 999.9435 792.48 (variance155 518 383.5 yuan2/ha2)30 794.85Referring to the actual cultivated land productivity in 2018Farming time∥d97.23120152.34180Area of cultivated land percapita (A)∥haAfter going out to work as migrant workers0.02(30 people)00.067(2 people)0.067≤0.067 haBefore going out to work as migrant workers0.032(14 people)0.028Area of cultivated land percapita (B)∥ha0.110 (50 people)0.116 (51 people)0.1000.1110.133(45 people)0.1330.067 ha≤0.164 ha (average of 180 households surveyed)Area of cultivated land percapita (C)∥ha0.261(10 people)0.281(5 people)0.2580.2610.302 (43 people)0.244≥0.164 haPer capita net income∥yuan8 108.5(variance 33 869 581.3 yuan2)5 9756 522.04(variance 41 040 695.54 yuan2)4 800Referring to the per capita net in-come of households in 2018

4.4.1There is a significant difference in productivity of land between households with and without migrant workers. In 2018, the land productivity of households without migrant workers was much higher than that of households with migrant workers. In terms of mean, the land productivity of households without migrant workers was 2.51 times that of households with migrant workers. In terms of median, the land productivity of households without migrant workers was 2.56 times that of households with migrant workers. The variance of land productivity of households with migrant workers was greater than that of households without migrant workers. It indicates that the impact of labor transfer on land productivity was very obvious, and the intensity of impact on different households was very different. Land productivity was positively correlated with farming time overall. In terms of mean, the farming time of households without migrant workers was 1.57 times that of households with migrant workers. In terms of median, the farming time of households without migrant workers was 1.5 times that of households with migrant workers. That is, the higher the labor input to the land, the higher the land productivity.

4.4.2The area of land used by households with migrant workers has dropped significantly. The cultivated land area per capita of households with migrant workers decreased at all the three levels of A, B and C after the labor transfer. In terms of mean, the cultivated land area per capita decreased by 37.5%, 5.17% and 7.12%, respectively; and in terms of median, the cultivated land area per capita decreased by 100%, 0.90% and 1.15%, respectively. The changes in the size of cultivated land area per capita were manifested by great decline in large scale (C, reduced by 5 people, a decrease of 50%), great increase in low scale (increased by 16 people, an increase of 114.3%) and remaining unchanged in medium scale.

4.4.3Per capita land use scale of households with migrant workers is significantly different from that of households without migrant workers. The households with migrant workers were mostly distributed at medium and high scales, accounting for 97.8% (C+B, 88 people; A, only 2 people), and the households without migrant workers were mostly distributed in low and medium scales, accounting for 88.9%. Before labor transfer, the households with low and medium cultivated land area per capita also accounted for more than half, reaching 72.2%. Inadequate income due to low cultivated land area per capita may be a cause for labor transfer. The cultivated land area per capita of households without migrant workers was greater than that of households with migrant workers at all the three levels, greater by 15.7%, 20.9% and 235.0% in terms of mean.

4.4.4Working outside produces an obvious effect on increasing the per capita net income of rural households. In 2018, the per capita net income of households with migrant workers was 8 108.50 yuan, and that of households without migrant workers was 6 522.04 yuan. In terms of median, the per capita net income of households with migrant workers 5 975.00 yuan, and that of households without migrant workers was 4 800.00 yuan.

4.4.5Land of households without migrant workers is utilized more fully than that of households with migrant workers. Overall, the marginal return of land utilization by households without migrant workers was closer to zero compared with that by households with migrant workers, that is, the land productivity had been developed to a greater extent. The variance of per capita net income of households without migrant workers was greater (33 869 581.3 yuan2for households with migrant workers and 41 040 695.54 yuan2for households without migrant workers). The variance of land productivity of households without migrant workers was smaller than that of households with migrant workers (271 422 209.5 yuan2/ha2for households with migrant workers and 155 518 383.5 yuan2/ha2for households without migrant workers). In addition, the land productivity of households without migrant workers was much higher than that of households with migrant workers. As a whole, the land productivity of households with migrant workers had been developed unevenly, while that of households without migrant workers had been developed well.

4.5AnalysisontheuseefficiencyoflandtransferredfromhouseholdswithmigrantworkerstohouseholdswithoutmigrantworkersThrough the analysis of various indicators, it can be seen from the whole that the utilization efficiency of land of households with migrant workers was poor, manifested by land abandonment and land productivity decline; while the utilization efficiency of land without migrant workers was high, and targeted poverty alleviation can be achieved through land revenue. This was because that the incomplete policy system had caused that the land transfer had not been carried out quickly. As a result, land (referring to agricultural land) had not been reallocated more reasonably in the process of targeted poverty alleviation. Farmers who needed land had not been able to obtain more land, while farmers who had no demand for land had not touched the contract and management right, which made the land resources not fully utilized and did not play a higher value. Therefore, based on the survey data, the effects produced by the land abandoned were estimated under the assumption that the land abandoned could be transferred freely among the surveyed farmers.

The decline in the area of land used by households with migrant workers reflected farmers’ waiving of demand for land. Among the households without migrant workers, 38 households expressed a desire to increase the use of land for income. Among the households with migrant workers, the area of land managed by 44 households decreased. Thus, demand and supply of land were formed. The total reduced area of land was 17.200 09 ha, that is, the supply was 17.200 09 ha. The area of land demanded by households without migrant workers was 21.030 86 ha. Thus, the demand was greater than the supply. It was assumed that all the land abandoned by the households with migrant workers was transferred to those without migrant workers; the land was utilized efficiently; and the productivity of the land was not influenced due to the increase in the area of land. Calculated by the average land productivity, the total annual income was 615 634 yuan. The poverty threshold for national per capita net income in 2018 was 3 500 yuan, so this income could lift 175 people out of poverty, accounting for 25.6% of the total number of the samples. In addition, the income of households without migrant workers increased by 27.4%, and the annual per capita net income reached 8 306.5 yuan, more than that (8 108.5 yuan) of households with migrant workers. Based on these samples, it could be concluded that the economic and poverty alleviation effects of land transfer were huge.

5 Conclusions and discussion

This article analyzes the changes in the utilization of land of households with and without migrant workers and the causes. Through field investigation and data analysis of the research area and the comparisons of area and productivity of contracted land before and after labor transfer and between households with and without migrant workers, the following conclusions could be drawn.

First, the poverty alleviation model of working outside to increase income has a significant impact on the use of contracted land by farmers. It is mainly caused by changes in the input of

land production factors caused by land transfer, changes in farmers’ subjective willingness, and poverty alleviation policy system’s disallowing migrant workers to give up the organic use of land. Second, the area and productivity of land of households with migrant workers were both lower than those of households without migrant workers. The differences in the land utilization of households without migrant workers were smaller than those of households with migrant workers. The marginal return of land productivity of households without migrant workers was closer to zero. Third, through land transfer, the land abandoned by the households with migrant workers was utilized more efficiently by the households without migrant workers, and great benefits were obtained. On the one hand, a larger number of farmers could be lifted out of poverty. On the other hand, due to the income brought by land transfer, the annual per capita net income of households without migrant workers was comparable to that of households with migrant workers.

Aiming at the above conclusions, the following suggestions are put forward to achieve a win-win situation between land utilization and targeted poverty alleviation. First, strategic attention should be paid to the contract and management issue of land left behind by households with migrant workers. Second, in terms of specific measures, compensation mechanism for farmland withdrawal needs to be established. Finally, in terms of promotion method, it is suggested to conduct land transfer to scale up agricultural production and promote the intensive use of land.