Cultivated land conversion and potential agricultural productivity in China

In China there is a growing debate on the role of cultivated land conversion on food security. This paper uses satellite images to examine the changes of the area of cultivated land and its potential agricultural productivity in China. We find that between 1986 and 2000 China recorded a net increase of cultivated land (+1.9%), which almost offset the decrease in average potential productivity, or bioproductivity (−2.2%). Therefore, we conclude that conversion of cultivated land has not hurt China's national food security. We also argue that more recent change in cultivated area likely has had little adverse effect on food security.     

Variability in agricultural productivity and rural household consumption inequality: Evidence from Nigeria and Uganda

This paper uses multiple rounds of panel data to assess the distributional implications of the variability in agricultural productivity in Nigeria and Uganda. It uses both a conventional decomposition and a regression‐based inequality decomposition approach to estimate the impact of climate‐induced variability in agricultural productivity. To mitigate the endogeneity associated with unobserved time‐invariant and time‐variant household fixed effects, we use rainfall shocks as a proxy for estimating the exogenous variability in agricultural productivity that affects consumption. Results suggest that a 10% increase in the variability of agricultural productivity tends to decrease household consumption by 38 and 52% on average for Nigeria and Uganda, respectively. Controlling for other factors, variability in agricultural productivity contributed to between 25% and 43% of consumption inequality between 2010 and 2015 for Nigeria; and 16% and 31% of consumption inequality between 2009 and 2011 for Uganda. We also show that variability in agricultural productivity increases changes in consumption inequality over time.     

Conversion of agricultural and forest land to other purposes in the context of land protection: Evidence from Polish experience

The protection of agricultural land and forests is a relatively new concept in Poland, and it began with forest protection in the 1920s. The first regulations on the protection of agricultural land were introduced only in the 1960s. Agricultural land and forests received comprehensive protection pursuant to the provisions of the Act of 26 October 1977 on the protection of agricultural land, forests and land recultivation. This legal act set the foundations for the protection of farmland and forests in successive decades.The aim of this study was to determine the influence of farmland and forest protection on spatial planning and to highlight the loss of agricultural and forest land resulting from conversion to other purposes. Legal regulations pertaining to spatial planning and the protection of agricultural and land forests were analysed. The scale of the problem was identified, and future land-use types were forecast based on the data developed by Statistics Poland (GUS). The existing spatial plans (municipal master plan - MMP) were analysed to determine the conversion loss index (CLI) associated with the conversion of agricultural land and forests to other uses. Legal regulations pertaining to the protection of agricultural land and forests were also analysed, and the extent of the relevant conversion measures was determined. The study demonstrated that urban development and the inevitable urbanization of rural areas contribute to the loss of agricultural and forest land that are converted to other uses.     

Nonfarm employment,agricultural intensification,and productivity change: empirical findings from Uganda

This article uses panel data from the Living Standards Measurement Study‐Integrated Surveys on Agriculture for Uganda to assess the farm‐level effects of nonfarm employment on agricultural intensification and productivity change. A sample selection model is used to account for both unobserved heterogeneity and potential simultaneity between agricultural production and nonfarm income. Results show that nonfarm employment can have differential impacts on farm technology intensity and productivity. Nonfarm income is found to have a positive impact on farm hired labor and improved seed intensity; a negative effect on on‐farm family labor use; and no significant impact on fertilizer, soil water management, and joint use of farm technologies. The econometric evidence also indicates that agricultural productivity declines as nonfarm income increases. Taken together, our findings reveal important trade‐offs between nonfarm employment and income and farm productivity growth under smallholder agriculture. The results indicated that targeted policies are required to reduce these potential trade‐offs between nonfarm employment and agricultural intensification and productivity change.     

Dynamics and resource use efficiency of agricultural land sales and rental market in India

In a populous developing country such as India, developmental interventions are often woven around land, as this is the most critical resource in the livelihood support system of rural communities. In such a socio-economic environment, land has multiple uses. It is the most important source of income, a symbol of social status and prestige, and has very high collateral value for resource poor farm families. In these countries, the migration of rural workers to urban centers in search of employment, coupled with universal individual inheritance characteristics of land ownership, perpetuates the fragmentation of land holdings. In the majority of such cases, the point has been reached where land has become uneconomic and non-viable for cultivation. For farmers left with uneconomic land holdings there are only three options available; sell the land, rent it out, or lease land from others. In such scenarios land lease and land market policies assumes critical importance.     

Zionism and agricultural land: National narratives,environmental objectives,and land policy in Israel

The 1990s saw two different and even contradictory trends in Israel. On the one hand, there was a substantial increase in environmental awareness, on the part of both the general public and decision-makers, that led to a change in the land use planning policy at the national level. On the other hand, the Israel Lands Council (ILC), the body empowered by law to shape the national land policy, made a series of decisions that severely violated the principle of preserving agricultural land and led to massive conversion of agricultural land and open space for commercial, industrial, and residential development. Thus the national land policy became incompatible with the land use planning policy and the rise in environmental awareness it reflected.     

Population pressure,rural-to-rural migration and evolution of land tenure institutions: The case of Uganda

This study examines the evolutionary process of land tenure systems in Uganda from communal to private ownership with a special attention to the role of rural-to-rural migration as a key driving force. By tracing migration patterns using unique longitudinal household survey data containing detailed information on land tenure and migration history, we found that immigrant-dominated communities have a higher incidence of private land ownership even after controlling for population density and market access. We also found that land markets are more active in immigrant-dominated communities and that private land ownership results in higher agricultural productivity.     

Efficiency and equity of rural land markets and the impact on income: Evidence in Kenya and Uganda from 2003 to 2015

This study examines the evolution of land sales and rental markets and their impact on agricultural efficiency in rural Kenya and Uganda using panel data spanning over 10 years. Both countries show that land markets induce efficiency by transferring land to households with higher farming ability. In both countries, land markets enhance equity by transferring land from land-abundant to land-constrained households. Although renting in land increases crop income in Kenya, we find no evidence that it enables households to escape from poverty. In contrast, increase in owned land helped decrease poverty in Uganda. Parcel-level analysis reveals that rented-in land and owned land differ in productivity levels and crop choice. These findings point to the potential weaknesses in the land markets in Kenya and Uganda that impede their ability to contribute to poverty alleviation.     

Long run agricultural land expansion,booms and busts

Agricultural land expansion is a prominent feature in today’s developing countries. It is associated with a structural pattern of land use in many remote land-abundant regions where large-scale commercial primary product activities coexist with increased concentration of smallholders in more marginal areas. The result may be boom-bust cycles of development. If these phenomena are widespread across developing countries, then long-run expansion of agricultural land could be associated with lower levels of real income per capita, which may also fluctuate with prolonged expansion. A panel analysis conducted over 1961–2015 for 98 developing economies fails to reject this hypothesis. Policies should aim to decouple socio-economic gains through agricultural development from continued land expansion, and greater investments are needed to support smallholder agriculture, land distribution and livelihoods in these areas.     

The Farmland Rental Paradox: Extreme land ownership fragmentation as a new form of land degradation

Extreme farmland ownership fragmentation is becoming a limiting factor for sustainable land management in some countries. Scattered, excessively small parcels cease to be viable for individual farming, and owners feel forced to rent these parcels to larger enterprises farming on adjacent land. Our study demonstrates a phenomenon that we call the Farmland Rental Paradox, where very small parcels tend to create large production blocks by being rented to larger farmers, and therefore to significantly homogenize the land-use pattern. The parcel size established as the threshold for this phenomenon is 1.07 ha. Below this threshold, the smaller the parcels were, the larger the blocks that they tended to create.Using the example of the Czech Republic, a state with extremely high farmland ownership fragmentation, it is demonstrated that this phenomenon can currently determine the land use of up to 40% of the country's farmland. Our study also points to other countries where this phenomenon may apply, especially the transitional countries of Central and Eastern Europe.The study discusses the tempo of the fragmentation process, which accelerates exponentially in countries with the equal inheritance system. It goes on to discuss defragmentation, social impacts of the dominance of the land rental market, and environmental impacts of significant homogenization of the land-use pattern. The serious negative impacts of extreme land-ownership fragmentation show that this phenomenon can be considered as a significant form of land degradation.     

Sense and sustainability revisited: the limits of total factor productivity measures of sustainable agricultural systems

Many economists have advocated and applied total social factor productivity (TSFP) (i.e., total factor productivity estimated with both market and non‐market inputs and externalities, and with all factors valued at social prices) as a single all‐embracing measure of agricultural sustainability. This paper reviews the conceptual and practical issues in measuring TSFP and shows that no one measure alone will be theoretically or empirically robust as an indicator of sustainability. TSFP is a conceptually flawed measure since inclusion of non‐market inputs and outputs and social price‐based valuation, in most cases, violates the theoretical basis underlying those estimates. Trends in TSFP also have limited value in diagnosing the nature of sustainability problems, unless changes in productivity are related to underlying changes in technology, human and physical infrastructure, and indicators of resource quality. More attention needs to be given to defining key indicators of agro‐ecosystem health and relating these measures to trends in productivity. This analysis must be sufficiently disaggregated and for a long enough time period to allow for spatial and temporal variability inherent in agricultural production. Secondary data at the district level on both conventional inputs and outputs and resource quality have recently allowed more quantitative estimates of sustainability and its causes. With limited data, yield growth decomposition analysis can often be used to provide valuable insights into sustainability problems. Meanwhile, there is a need to invest in long‐term experimental and panel surveys of farmers and their fields for key production systems in order to provide long‐term data that will allow full productivity accounting, using more formal statistical procedures. Regardless of the approach selected, the findings of this paper strongly suggest a need for economists, agronomists and soil scientists to collaborate in integrating approaches in order to provide more robust and informative measures of sustainability.     

Spatial-temporal characteristics and influencing factors of agricultural eco-efficiency in China in recent 40 years

Chinese agricultural output has been multiple under the intensive input of production factors since the reform and opening-up. Such a growth pattern that realizes high output through high input results in increasingly prominent environmental pollution problems. Considering the provincial panel data in China during 1978–2017 as the research units and taking agriculture in broad sense as the study object, the agricultural eco-efficiency (AEE) was measured by the Super-SBM Model, and the influencing factors were screened out from agricultural basic condition, agricultural industrial structure, agricultural development potential and agricultural input strength. The findings indicated that agricultural expected output and unexpected output were synchronously increased, while the change of input factors was totally different and gradually transferred to materiality from resources. In 1978–2017, AEE was increased to 0.713 from 0.405, with an increase of about 76%. And it approximately underwent four stages, including free development, reform promotion, market regulation and policy incentives. Under the resource restraint and policy incentives, AEE showed that Northeast, East and South China were higher than the national average level. North and Central China basically fitted for the national average level, and Southwest and Northwest China were lower than the national average level. Also, it was successively present in some spatial characteristics including polarization, differentiation, agglomeration and reconstruction on the provincial scale. The magnitude and direction of influencing factors indicated that the introduction of subsidy policies for compound fertilizers, an increase of farmers’ incomes, optimization of agricultural plantation structure, and maintenance of stable agricultural product prices could effectively improve AEE.     

Analysing how drivers of agricultural land abandonment affect biodiversity and cultural landscapes using case studies from Scandinavia,Iberia and Oceania

Agricultural land abandonment (ALA) is widespread in many countries of the global north. It impacts rural communities, traditional landscapes, biodiversity and ecosystem services. It is an opportunity for ecosystem restoration or new landscape functions. We explored ALA in study areas in Australia, Portugal and Sweden. In each, we assessed plant species diversity, historical trajectories of land cover change; and the socioeconomic past, present and future in interviews with farmers. The ALA data was integrated and analysed by identifying the drivers of change. The relative importance of each driver and its scale of action was estimated, both in the past (1950–2010) and in the future (2010–2030). ALA has transformed rural landscapes in the study areas of Portugal and Sweden. It is at a much earlier stage with potential to increase in the Australian case. We identified a set of driving forces, classified into pressures, frictions and attractors that clarify why ALA, noting its temporal and spatial scale, occurs differently in each study area. The effect of the drivers is related to social and historical contexts. Pressures and attractors encouraging agricultural abandonment are strongest in Portugal and Sweden. Generally more (institutionalized) frictions are in place in these European sites, intended to prevent further change, based on the benefits assumed for biodiversity and aesthetics. In Australia, the stimulation of driving forces to promote a well-managed abandonment of some cleared areas could be highly beneficial for biodiversity, minimally disruptive for current dairy farming operations and would bring opportunities for alternative types of rural development.     

Cultivated land productivity potential improvement in land consolidation schemes in Shenyang,China: assessment and policy implications

Cultivated land productivity potential improvement (CLPPI) assessment is the fundamental basis to launch land consolidation, which is one of the most important way to increase the grain productive capacity. Previous studies on CLPPI assessment have focused on factors related to natural conditions of cultivated land, but they ignored the impacts of utilization conditions, including plot characteristics and agricultural infrastructure, which account for substantial CLPPI from land consolidation. Based on the crop-growth model and Agro-ecological Zoning (AEZ) methodology, this paper proposed a modified CLPPI assessment model to estimate the improvement of land productivity potential via land consolidation. Meanwhile, the contribute rates of different factors involved in determining the CLPPI were also analysed to reveal the ideal work focus and policy direction for land consolidation. Results showed that the calculated CLPPI values had obvious spatial variety in Shenyang, of which the average was 326.18. For the consolidation case, total crop production in Shenyang could be increased by as much as 149.89 × 107 kg, 20% of the current yield. CLPPI is the comprehensive outcome of both natural and utilization qualities of land use, and the current productivity potential of cultivated land in Shenyang relied much less on natural conditions such as soil than on utilization conditions such as agricultural infrastructure. In addition, medium-productivity lands were most appropriate target areas for the implication of land consolidation projects. Actually, the arrangement of land consolidation projects should not only consider CLPPI as in the past, but also add the theoretical productivity potential into consideration. Moreover, the realization of estimated CLPPI also calls for active changes of the whole land management system. An integrated institution for the full implementation of land consolidation, proper regulations and laws on the follow-up protection of cultivated land productivity potential, economic policies to stimulate the willingness of farmers, and a transfer mechanism for cultivated land are all needed policy changes.     

Convergence and divergence in regional agricultural productivity growth: evidence from Italian regions, 1951–2002

This article analyzes long‐term agricultural Total Factor Productivity (TFP) growth at regional level by testing its time‐series properties and identifying factors associated with divergence as opposed to convergence. The empirical application concerns Italian regions over the 1951–2002 time period. TFP growth decomposition ultimately attributes the observed productivity growth performance to these contrasting (convergence vs. divergence) forces. We find that technological spillovers are the key convergence force regardless of how the spillover effects are computed. At the same time, forces favoring convergence are almost offset by divergence forces (mainly scale or learning effects). This decomposition may explain the persistence of TFP growth rate differences in Italian agriculture, and could be applicable elsewhere.     

Towards sustainable rural development in Central and Eastern Europe: Applying land consolidation

Over the past twenty years, social and economic decline in rural areas has intensified in the Central and Eastern European countries. A precondition for the reversal of this decline is the implementation of new policies in relation to the fundamentals of land ownership and management. In addition to addressing the problems of land ownership fragmentation, these should include measures to improve agricultural production and employment, taxation policy, and legislation to protect land ownership rights, within the context of acknowledging environmental and sustainability considerations. In Europe, the requirement for readjusting unfavourable land fragmentation and promoting the appropriate use of land combining with positive environmental solutions is expected to create new sustainable land management systems. The consolidation of land ownerships may be an effective and active land management instrument which not only addresses the problems of land fragmentation, but also, if applied sensitively, may be an instrument for delivering sustainable rural development in a wider context. The aim of this research is to investigate land consolidation as an essential tool to create sustainable rural areas in Lithuania.     

Geography of plant breeding systems,agroclimatic similarity,and agricultural productivity: evidence from Nigeria

Agroclimatic conditions and agricultural research and development (R&D) including plant breeding activities by the public sector are some of the most significant exogenous factors in the agricultural sector. However, the effects of the interactions between these two sets of factors on agricultural productivity have not been studied widely in developing countries, despite potentially important implications on their plant breeding strategies. Using three‐wave panel data of agricultural households in Nigeria and spatial data on various agroclimatic parameters, we show that agricultural productivity and technical efficiency at the agricultural household level is significantly positively affected by the similarity of agroclimatic conditions between locations where agricultural households are located, and locations where major plant breeding institutes are located. These results hold after controlling for various socioeconomic characteristics of these households, including their physical distances to the breeding institutes. Findings are robust across parametric and nonparametric specifications such as Data Envelopment Method, and after addressing potential endogeneity of agroclimatic similarity and agricultural inputs variables in the production function. Productivity effects due to the locations of plant breeding institutes and resulting agroclimatic similarity can be potentially sizable given Nigeria's past productivity growth speed.     

Evolution of land tenure institutions and development of agroforestry: evidence from customary land areas of Sumatra

It is widely believed that land tenure insecurity under a customary tenure system leads to a socially inefficient resource allocation. This article demonstrates that the practice of granting secure individual ownership to tree planters spurs earlier tree planting, which is inefficient from the private point of view but could be efficient from the viewpoint of the global environment. Regression analysis, based on primary data collected in Sumatra, indicates that an expected increase in tenure security in fact led to early tree planting. It is also found that customary land tenure institutions have been evolving towards greater tenure security responding to increasing scarcity of land.     

Special issue: Environmental risk mitigation for sustainable land use development

The Special Issue (SI) “Environmental Risk Mitigation for Sustainable Land Use Development” presents seventeen interrelated papers addressing the key concept of environmental risk mitigation and sustainable land use development. The issue argues that risk mitigation depends directly on the risk assessment analysis and the quality of applied measures. Therefore, the more precise are risk assessment conclusions, the better the risk mitigation measures would be. This collection of papers follows the vision of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015–2030 (Sendai Framework) which states that the integration of sustainable development objectives into disaster risk mitigation and adaptation at all levels and at all stages of policy action are of paramount importance for the sustainability of our communities. The final purpose of the issue is to address the mutual roles of land use policy on environmental risk mitigation and adaptation, especially disaster risks.     

The incidence of agricultural policy on the land market in Poland: Two-dimensional and multilevel analysis

Research has shown that the reform of the CAP which broke the link between subsidies and production (the decoupling reform) has had little effect on farmers’ demand for land under the SPS (Single Payment Scheme) system. For this reason, in the conditions of the SPS, there is petrifaction of the structure of agricultural land, and an upward trend in prices on the market for agricultural land should not be expected to continue in the long term. Under the conditions of the SAPS (Single Area Payment Scheme), which applies in the EU-12 new Member States, the position in the market for agricultural land is different. However, most research carried out in Europe relates to the SPS system, where marginal changes in the value of land are identified as a result of the incidence of agricultural policy, as well as quantitative and qualitative attributes of particular properties. Under SAPS, these issues have not been sufficiently investigated. The authors have attempted to fill that gap, constructing a two-dimensional and multilevel econometric model for land prices in a leading agricultural region of Poland based on a sample of 653 transactions in the years 2010–2013. The aim is to determine how policy, as well as various quantitative and qualitative features, including location factors, affect the prices of land under SAPS. The results indicate, among other things, the key importance of the functional type of rural areas – properties in agrotouristic areas gained 43% higher prices on average than those in agricultural areas. Another finding of interest is that LFA and agro-environmental payments decapitalise the value of land.