The consequences of changes of ownership for agricultural land use in Central European countries following the collapse of the Eastern Bloc

One of the key factors shaping contemporary land use in Central and Eastern Europe has obviously been change of ownership, with the collapse of the nationalised sector and restitution of farmland to owners giving rise to such changes. The work presented here therefore considers the main directions to ongoing changes in land use in the above region, under the influence of the processes of privatisation affecting the agricultural sector. Specifically, analyses conducted entailed assessment of the influence ownership processes have exerted on the area and structure of agricultural land, the size structure characterising farms and the situation on the market for land. The work took in five countries of the former Eastern Bloc, i.e. the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Slovakia.     

Past and future impacts of land use and climate change on agricultural ecosystem services in the Czech Republic

Climatic and land use change are amongst the greatest global environmental pressures resulting from anthropogenic activities. Both significantly influence the provision of crucial ecosystem services, such as carbon sequestration, water flow regulation, and food and fibre production, at a variety of scales. The aim of this study is to provide spatially explicit information at a national level on climate and land use change impacts in order to assess changes in the provision of ecosystem services. This work provides a qualitative and quantitative analysis of the impacts on selected ecosystem services (carbon sequestration, food production and soil erosion) in the agricultural sector of the Czech Republic. This assessment shows that, historical land use trends and land use under projected climate scenarios display some shared spatial patterns. Specifically, these factors both lead to a significant decrease of arable land in the border fringes of the Czech Republic, which is to some extent replaced by grasslands, in turn affecting the provision of ecosystem services. Moreover, this assessment contributes to a useful method for integrating spatially explicit land use and climate change analysis that can be applied to other sectors or transition countries elsewhere.     

The impact of urban expansion on agricultural land use intensity in China

China's urbanization has resulted in significant changes in both agricultural land and agricultural land use. However, there is limited understanding about the relationship between the two primary changes occurring to China's agricultural land – the urban expansion on agricultural land and agricultural land use intensity. The goal of this paper is to understand this relationship in China using panel econometric methods. Our results show that urban expansion is associated with a decline in agricultural land use intensity. The area of cultivated land per capita, a measurement about land scarcity, is negatively correlated with agricultural land use intensity. We also find that GDP in the industrial sector negatively affects agricultural land use intensity. GDP per capita and agricultural investments both positively contribute to the intensification of agricultural land use. Our results, together with the links between urbanization, agricultural land, and agricultural production imply that agricultural land expansion is highly likely with continued urban expansion and that pressures on the country's natural land resources will remain high in the future.     

Reconstructing production efficiency,land use and trade for livestock systems in historical perspective. The case of France, 1961–2010

This paper provides an original accounting of changes in livestock production efficiency per livestock category in historical perspective and connects livestock consumption with land requirements and virtual land trade. We use France as a demonstration study and account for productivity changes in terms of energy. Feed rations composition are reconstructed per livestock production and feed crop group over time to account for changes in land use in relation to dietary changes. Land requirements for consumption in France dropped by 28% over the study period besides an increase by 35% of the human population and by 53% of the livestock consumption. The two-fold increase in agricultural productivity is due, for half, to energy conversion efficiency improvements and for half to agricultural yields. Overall, the livestock energy conversion efficiency increased by 45% from 1961 to 2010, poultry gained 84%, pork 17%, sheep&goat 67% and cattle 27%. The feed share of oilcrops and cereals in animal rations doubled against a drop by 35% of feed from pastures. Virtual land imports for oilcrops in relation to livestock consumption in France today amount to 0.9 million ha against a maximum of 1.9 million ha in 1979. Besides its dependence on oilcrops imports, the French livestock sector displays net virtual land exports ranging from about 2.5–5.3 million ha per year over the study period. Gross virtual land trade is today five times higher than the net virtual trade. The difference highlights the share of circular product loops in increasingly integrated agricultural markets at the international scale.     

Smallholder participation in the land rental market in a mountainous region of Southern China: Impact of population aging,land tenure security and ethnicity

Rural land rental markets in China play an increasingly important role in the transformation of the agricultural sector. This study focuses on the rural land rental market in the Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture in Southern China, a mountainous region, where rapid changes in land use have taken place with the transition from traditional agriculture and a tropical rainforest to rubber monoculture. Notably, we assess the impacts of population aging, land tenure security, and ethnicity on the participation of smallholders in the land rental market. The analysis suggests that a higher proportion of older people in a household increases the likelihood of renting out land and reduces the probability of renting in land, implying that population aging fosters land rental market development by transferring land from older to younger farmers. We also confirm that the availability of a land tenure certificate has a significant and positive impact on the renting out of land. Furthermore, ethnic minority groups are less likely to rent out land, indicating that land rental markets are ethnic sensitive. Additionally, specialization in rubber farming, household wealth and the altitude of household location also influence participation in the land rental market.     

城市化进程中土地资源持续利用问题

在分析评价我国城市化现状的基础上,指出我国城市化进程中土地利用水平及其存在的问题,揭示城市化进程对我国耕地面积变动的影响。最后提出城市化进程中土地资源持续利用的对策。     

构建城乡土地自由流动的政策工具——以换地权益书保障土地要素返流的探索

研究目的:探索如何以换地权益书作为土地要素返流的保障手段,以期构建城乡土地自由流动的政策工具.研究方法:政策分析法和规范分析法.研究结果:当前统筹城乡发展中的土地要素流动存在诸多困境,不仅包括土地多重负担造成流动困难,还包括土地单向流动为主、缺乏双向流动的保障,以及土地规模化经营和流动中面临的空间和位置障碍.研究结论:要大胆创设新的政策工具,采用"换地权益书"的形式来构建土地要素自由流动的保障,这在当前既是必要的,也是可行的.     

Dynamic land use and land cover changes and their effect on forest resources in a coastal village of Matemwe,Zanzibar, Tanzania

Recent land cover change estimates show overall decline of tropical forests at the regional and global scales caused by multiple social, cultural and economic factors. There is an overall concern on the prevailing land use practices, such as shifting cultivation and extraction of forest materials as agents of forests losses, but also new, emerging land uses are threatening tropical forests. Understanding of the long-term development and driving forces of forest changes are needed, especially at local levels where many decisions on forest policies and land uses are made. This paper addresses the importance of such information for improved estimates of forest dynamics by studying local level land cover and land use changes during the last 50–70 years in the Eastern African tropical island of Zanzibar, Tanzania. The paper discusses the role of traditional and new land uses mainly subsistence farming, tourism and government interference through tree planting, in the long-term development of the forests at the village level. The material for the study is gathered from the interpretation of archival maps and aerial photographs combined with contemporary digital aerial photographs. The analyses are based on the mapping, spatial sampling and spatio-temporal change trajectory analysis (LCTA) of forest land cover, forest land uses and settlement patterns with GIS and statistics. Six distinct forest land cover change trajectories were identified and these illustrate dynamic and heterogeneous nature of the forests. Closed forest cover has dominated throughout due to cyclical land use patterns, but over 70% of the land area has been continuously transforming between closed, semi-open and open land cover conditions. Land use turnover rates indicate that hardly any forest areas are left untouched from the forces, which remove and re-establish forest vegetation in the long run. Land cover and land use change trajectories are spatially fragmented in the studied landscape. Majority of forest loss-gain dynamics is caused by shifting cultivation, while forest losses are most dramatic along the coast, where traditional and new land uses meet and land uses pressures are highest. The study suggests that landscape change trajectory analyses, where contemporary and historical information on land uses and land cover changes are spatially linked, can provide valuable aspects into local level forest land use planning and management strategies. For the case study, the findings suggest the following key forest management strategies for consideration: (1) establishment of a protected forest/scrubland in participation with the local stakeholders, especially the farmers, (2) promotion of areas for permanent agricultural practices, while simultaneously introducing management controls in the traditional slash-and-burn farming areas, and (3) promoting new livelihood opportunities for the farmers, who have traditionally been dependent on forest resources, meanwhile introducing alternatives for fuel wood for cooking.     

城市化进程中江苏省耕地资源非农化转化的实证分析

伴随着我国经济的快速发展和城市化进程的加快，对土地资源的需求量急剧上升，作为土地中的精华——耕地资源也在农业部门和经济建设之间面临着如何分配的矛盾。如何确保耕地资源在粮食安全和经济发展间的优化配置已经成为一个迫切需要解决的问题。本文试图通过对江苏省耕地数量的变动态势进行分析，并运用区域容许耕地转换量化模型（MAC）来确定江苏省可以允许转换的耕地的最优数量，借此来确定区域耕地保护的底线及调控指标．为城市化进程中区域耕地资源的优化配置提供一种依据和解决思路．     

Land use and climate change in the UK

This paper reviews the relationships between land use and climate change. It explores how land use decisions will be affected by future changes in the climate, but also the feedbacks from land use change to the global climate system through greenhouse gas (GHG) fluxes. Past changes in land use were characterised by decreasing areas of agricultural use and increasing areas of forested and urbanised land. This has led to UK land use being a net sink for GHGs, mostly due to forestation. However, existing forests have on average passed their age for maximum net removals of carbon from the atmosphere. In the next decade at least, net removals from UK forests are likely to decrease significantly.Longer term scenarios of future land use change are consistent in their expectation of further declines in the agricultural area used for food production – offset to some extent by increased bioenergy cropping – along with increases in forested and urban areas. These trends are broadly consistent with the observed past land use change, but are calculated from various assumptions about future changes in drivers rather than by extrapolation from the past. Socio-economic and technological changes are likely to be the most important drivers for land use, with climate change having a smaller influence. The land use changes represented in these scenarios would likely reduce GHG emissions and enhance carbon sinks. These trends would be reinforced by small future changes in the climate, but large climatic changes are likely to cause net GHG fluxes to switch from being a sink to a source. Land use change will also be moderated by potential policy goals that seek to reduce GHG emissions from land and/or increase the size of land-based sinks. This includes strategies to reduce carbon and nitrogen emissions through increased efficiency, afforestation and biofuel production.     

Land reform and land fragmentation in Central and Eastern Europe

It has often been stated that land fragmentation and farm structures characterized by small agricultural holdings and farms divided in a large number of parcels have been the side-effect of land reform in Central and Eastern Europe. This article reports the findings of a study of land reform in 25 countries in the region from 1989 and onwards and provides an overview of applied land reform approaches. With a basis in theory on land fragmentation, the linkage between land reform approaches and land fragmentation is explored. It is discussed in which situations land fragmentation is a barrier for the development of the agricultural and rural sector. The main finding is that land fragmentation is often hampering agricultural and rural development when both land ownership and land use is highly fragmented.     

Land use dynamics driven by rural industrialization and land finance in the peri-urban areas of China: “The examples of Jiangyin and Shunde”

As China experienced rapid economic growth, non-agricultural land, particularly industrial land, expanded significantly within its peri-urban areas. This paper takes two typical peri-urban areas: Jiangyin in the Yangtze River Delta and Shunde in the Pearl River Delta, as cases, and applies landscape ecology indices to analyze land use dynamics through overlay of their land use maps from 2001 to 2010. This research reveals that local cadres such as township governments and village collectives utilize land finance as a strategy to contest the reshuffling of central-local power brought about by the 1994 tax-sharing scheme. Meanwhile, under the stringent land quota system, local cadres allocated most quotas to the industrial sector in order to encourage economic growth. However, the fragmented governance regime, including county/city, township to administrative village and natural village, led to land fragmentation, which had adverse impacts on sustainable development. In general, the research on land use of peri-urban areas requires a comprehensive perspective of social, economic and institutional aspects.     

Exploring land use changes and the role of palm oil production in Indonesia and Malaysia

This study compiles and analyses national-level data on land use change (LUC) and its causes in Indonesia and Malaysia over the past 30 years. The study also explores the role that palm oil has played in past LUC and that projected growth in palm oil production may play in LUC until 2020 and suggests strategies to minimize negative effects. Data collection for the study revealed that the quality and quantity of data on LUC on a national scale over time are low. Despite these uncertainties, the overview of past LUC indicates that large changes in land use have occurred in Indonesia and Malaysia. In Indonesia, LUC can primarily be characterized by forest cover loss on 40 million ha (Mha) of land, a 30% reduction in forest land. Deforestation in Malaysia has been smaller in both absolute and relative terms, with a forest cover loss of nearly 5 Mha (20% reduction in forest land). Other large changes in Malaysia occurred in permanent cropland (excluding oil palm), which has decreased rapidly since the early 1990s, and in land under oil palm cultivation, which experienced a sharp increase. Projections of additional land demand for palm oil production in 2020 range from 1 to 28 Mha in Indonesia. The demand can be met to a large extent by degraded land if no further deforestation is assumed. In Malaysia, expansion projections range from 0.06 to 5 Mha, but only the lowest projection of oil palm expansion is feasible when only degraded land may be used. The role of palm oil production in future LUC depends on the size of the projected expansion as well as agricultural management factors such as implementation of best management practices, earlier replanting with higher yielding plants, and establishment of new plantations on degraded land. The current use of degraded land needs to be investigated in order to reduce possible indirect LUC, land tenure conflicts, or other social impacts. In addition to minimizing direct and indirect LUC by the palm oil sector, measures that reduce deforestation triggered by other causes must also be implemented. A key element for doing so is better planning and governance of land use, which entails more appropriate demarcation of forest land and protection of land that still has forest cover, improved monitoring of land use, and more research to uncover the complexities and dynamics of the causes and drivers of LUC.     

How did post-2000 agricultural policy changes in Turkey affect farmers? – A focus group evaluation

The aim of this study is to provide an analysis on how producers have been affected by the decisions made in 2000 in the agricultural sector. Data collected from the focus group discussions was compared to the agricultural policy effects on Antalya Burdur and Isparta provinces. The participants were primarily selected from a list of state institutions and organizations, and included representatives from cooperatives and producer organizations that are engaged in the agricultural sector and/or bring service to rural areas. The discussion revealed that small-scale farmers were unable to use the support provided by the policies; as a consequence, many of them were unable to cultivate their land and had to migrate. In general, the participants stated that significant social and economic changes did occur in rural areas, however they emphasized that these changes were to the detriment of small-scale farmers and instead favored farmers operating on large scale.     

Labour Migration and Gendered Agricultural Relations: The Feminization of Agriculture in the Ejidal Sector of Calakmul,Mexico

We examine the nature of the ‘feminization of agriculture’ in the semi‐subsistence, peasant production sector of southeastern Mexico, as associated with male labour out‐migration. Presenting findings from empirical work with smallholder producers, we discuss the impact of men's migration to the United States on women's participation in agriculture and gendered relations of agricultural production. In 2007, we conducted a survey of 155 semi‐subsistence, smallholder households in six ejidos. This survey was supplemented by ethnographic research in a single ejido. Our findings demonstrate the need to distinguish between farm labour and management in this sector, and the potentially significant (but focused) changes in the local relations of agricultural production wrought by gendered patterns of labour migration – specifically in tenure, land‐use decision‐making and the management of hired labour.     

Toward integrated water and agricultural land management: Participatory design of agricultural landscapes

One of the great challenges of developing sustainable water management is to integrate water and land use issues, and to favor stakeholders’ involvement in the process of designing a solution to the specific issues of water basins. This study aims to help reach these objectives: we present the outcomes of a methodology that aims to design, with stakeholders of a watershed facing quantitative water management issues, alternative agricultural landscapes that they each consider as potential solutions. Our design approach combines (1) facilitation of participatory workshops for designing changes in cropping systems and their spatial distributions at the landscape level with (2) formalization of these alternatives in a GIS. The formalized alternatives provide precise information about fields, farms and areas concerned by the designed changes. We present two sample results of this methodology implemented in a 840 km² irrigated landscape located in a water-deficient watershed in southwestern France. We discuss how our design approach may be useful for a wider design-and-assessment methodology involving researchers and stakeholders with conflicting interests. We show that our co-design approach provides fertile ground for the emergence of salient, credible and legitimate change options.     

The impact of the 1999 CAP reforms on the efficiency of the COP sector in Spain

The cereal, oilseeds, and protein crop sector (COP) occupies a prominent position within the European Union's agricultural sector. Within Spain, the COP sector accounts for almost a third of total Agricultural Guidance and Guarantee Fund expenses, and half of the utilized agricultural area (UAA). The COP sector is not only relevant because of its physical and economic magnitude, but also because of the political attention it receives. The Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) reforms that occurred during the 1990s paid special attention to this sector. This article aims to determine the impacts of Agenda 2000 on a sample of Spanish COP farmers' production decisions by using an output-oriented stochastic distance function. The distance function allows for an assessment of the reform-motivated changes on total output, input used, input composition, and crop mix. It also permits an assessment of the impacts of the reform on farms' technical efficiency.
Results show that the reform has shifted the production frontier inward and changed output composition in favor of voluntary set-aside land. With respect to input composition, Agenda 2000 induced a decrease in land, fertilizers, pesticides, and other inputs in favor of labor. In addition, Agenda 2000 has had a negative impact on technical efficiency.     

农地使用制度不确定性与水库移民安置区利益冲突及整合研究

研究目的:研究农地使用制度不确定性的表现形式及其对水库移民安置区各利益主体的影响。研究方法:理论分析法和文献资料法。研究结果:在现行承包关系与下轮承包关系衔接时,农地使用制度存在着在原承包地基础上单纯延长承包划和打乱再重新分配两种可能性,农地使用制度的不确定性造成安置区居民和移民之间在土地补偿和土地分配等方面存在诸多利益冲突。研究结论:完善农地使用制度方面的法律政策,明确下轮土地发包时采取保留承包地单纯延长承包期的方式,降低农地使用制度的不确定性,同时还应该明确安置区土地流转的性质和补偿标准,搭建安置区居民共享水利水电工程效益的平台,促进移民和安置区居民之间的整合。     

The influence of land-use change paradigm on Romania’s agro-food trade competitiveness—An overview

The current transformations of the Romanian agricultural sector have imposed new paradigms in using the land resources. The objective of this study is to assess Romanian agro-food products competitiveness on world market, in terms of land use changing paradigms. The research question is whether the land is cultivated with crops which are competitive on world market. For assessing agro-food competitiveness, Balassa index is calculated. The findings show relative performance for barley, maize, triticale, wheat, poultry meat, oilseeds, and tobacco. But the areas cultivated with barley and wheat decreased in the period under analysis, although these products have highest relative performance of exports. The paper also proposes structural changes of land use needed for encouraging those crops and products which have high revealed comparative advantages on world markets.     

杭州市土地利用结构与效率研究

土地是一种不可再生资源,杭州市人多地少,经济发达,土地的供需矛盾突出。目前,杭州城市土地最突出的问题是供应紧张与工业利用效率低下并存。比较杭州与国内外主要城市的土地利用状况,从宏观上分析杭州城市土地利用结构;从微观层面分析城市工业用地效率;提出了优化城市土地利用结构和提高土地利用效率的对策建议。