Resources Science ›› 2019, Vol. 41 ›› Issue (8): 1551-1562.doi: 10.18402/resci.2019.08.14

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Farmland transfer performance and obstacles from the perspective of farmers’ livelihood:Based on rural household survey of greater Wuhan Metropolitan Area

Man CHEN,Chenlin GAN,Yun MEI(),Yinrong CHEN   

  1. School of Public Administration, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan 430070, China
  • Received:2018-12-03 Revised:2019-06-13 Online:2019-08-28 Published:2019-08-21
  • Contact: Yun MEI E-mail:meiyun@mail.hzau.edu.cn

Abstract:

Farmers are the most directly affected by farmland transfer policy. Their livelihood satisfaction is the subjective evaluation of the livelihood change based on their own standards and the ultimate assessment of farmland transfer performance. Examining the performance of farmland transfer and its barriers from the perspective of farmers’ livelihoods is of great significance for improving the performance of farmland transfer and promoting the sustainable development of rural land transfer. This study constructed a satisfaction index system from seven dimensions of natural, human, physical, financial, social, psychological, and policy capitals. The Wuhan Metropolitan Area was selected for case study, and the entropy weight Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) method and the obstacle degree model were used to evaluate the performance of farmland transfer policy and reveal the obstacles. We found that the performance level of the entire surveyed area is average. The most important factors affecting the performance of farmland transfer are policy capital, natural capital, and psychological capital. The main obstacles that affect the performance of farmland transfer were farmers’ satisfaction with government’s respect for individual willingness to transfer (PS1), farmers’ satisfaction with changes in land quality after transfer (N1), and farmers’ satisfaction with government’s farmland transfer policy supervision work (PO4). The government plays a vital role in promoting the transfer of agricultural land. In order to improve the performance of farmland transfer, the government should improve the farmland transfer system and process, standardize the management mechanism, and prevent the non-food production and non-agricultural use of the transferred land on the basis of fully respecting the farmers’ wishes.

Key words: farmland transfer, livelihood capital, livelihood satisfaction, performance evaluation, obstacles, Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution, Wuhan Metropolitan Area