Market-based grazing land transfers and customary institutions in the management of rangelands: Two case studies on the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau

Beginning in the early 1990’s, grazing lands once held in common were contracted to individual households in the rangeland regions of China. The resulting fragmentation of rangelands has led to ecological and social problems. As China seeks to address intractable poverty and rangeland degradation, attention has turned to rental, or transfer, of contracted grazing land as a market-based approach to re-aggregating grazing land into larger units that support economies of scale. However, given that many pastoral regions still maintain community customary institutions, what the relationship between market mechanisms and local customary institutions should be in rangeland management needs further analysis. This paper applies comparative case studies of two types of relationships between market mechanisms and customary institutions: (1) market mechanisms that replace customary institutions in the case of Axi village, and (2) market mechanisms that are embedded within customary institutions in Xiareer village. This allows contrast of the impacts of differing approaches on livelihoods, livestock production, and wealth differentiation among pastoral households. We found that there is a higher level of livestock mortality, lower livestock productivity, and higher livestock production cost in Axi Village compared to Xiareer Village. In addition, household asset levels are higher and there is less income differentiation in Xiareer Village. It is concluded that embedding market mechanisms within customary institutions has had notable benefits for the herders of Xiareer Village, because it is a better fit to the coupled pastoral social-ecological system. Based on these findings, we argue that in pastoral communities where the rangeland transfer system for contracted grazing land has not yet been implemented, it is critical to reconsider China’s current policy approach to pay greater attention to the innovative management systems being developed in local regions. Instead of considering market-based approaches as oppositional to traditional institutions, options that derive from the interaction of market-based and customary institutions should be considered.     

西安市农村土地流转的“高陵模式”分析与启示

西安市农村土地流转速度大大加快,在8区县开展土地流转工作试点,土地流转区域范围得到不断拓展,规模得以不断扩大;流转形式向多样化发展,流转主体向多元化发展且以农民为主体;政府重视程度提高,土地流转形式更加规范化。文章在分析西安市农村土地流转现状、流转特征、以产权改革促进土地流转的基础上,选取西安市最具代表性的农村土地流转"高陵模式"为例,分析其具体的实践策略,总结出"高陵模式"中流转土地建农场、小面积土地流转给园区、不改变流地农业生产性质的三大现象。以土地流转"高陵模式"的实践经验为参考,探讨农村土地流转的战略意义,从政策法规、组织管理机构、流转机制、配套体系等方面进行农村土地流转路径研究,提出了出台土地流转政策法规,健全土地流转组织管理机构、试点工作勇于突破,进行流转机制的大胆创新、完善土地流转配套体系建设的土地流转路径,为西安市农村土地流转工作提供指导性作用,有效促进西安市农业现代化发展。     

Using participatory mapping and a participatory geographic information system in pastoral land use investigation: Impacts of rangeland policy in Botswana

Since the 1980s, the spatial extent of communal grazing lands in Botswana has been diminishing due to rangeland privatisation and fencing associated with animal health policies. Spatial comparisons of pastoral land use transformations are particularly important where accessibility to grazing and water resources remains at the core of sustainable pastoralism policies. Achieving success in pastoral development research requires a sound understanding of traditional pastoralists’ information systems, including the nature of local spatial knowledge. This study explores local spatial knowledge through participatory mapping and a Participatory Geographic Information System to understand and analyse pastoralists’ grazing patterns, spatial mobility and the impacts of subdivisions and privatisation policies in Botswana’s Ngamiland rangelands. The study uses focus group discussions, historical analysis through key informant interviews, and participatory mapping exercises along with community guided transect walks. The resulting maps provide insights into the traditional tenure patterns of land use and the impacts of rangeland policy on traditional livestock spatial mobility and access to grazing lands. Privatisation and rangeland enclosures have resulted in the restricted movement of livestock and overstocking of floodplains and riparian rangelands, with some natural water pans becoming inaccessible to local communities. We conclude that the integration of local spatial knowledge can be used to foster better articulation and understanding of pastoralists’ tenures, which are often lacking in communal land administration systems. Such integrated analysis can contribute to sustainable pastoral land management policy toolkits in semi-arid rangeland environments and enable better land tenure and management decision making for sustainable land management.     

城镇化中集约用地的影响因素研究

从国家(地区)层面研究城镇化集约用地,不同于单个城市,更不同于单宗土地的集约利用,其影响因素发生根本变化。国家城镇化集约用地,是在一定的城镇化目标下,以每个城市的集约用地为基础,并通过科学合理配置建设用地资源,实现社会综合收益和长远利益最大化的过程。其影响因素包括国家城镇化战略、城市(镇)的具体规划和国家土地制度三个根本方面。我国应借鉴世界城镇化发展的基本经验,重视不均衡发展规律的应用,在提高城镇总体发展效率的基础上,为推进城镇化集约用地创造基本的政策平台。     

Prevention of land use conflict in Zimbabwe's marginal lands

This paper outlines Zimbabwe's Communal Areas Management Programme for Indigenous Resources, a policy of developing marginal lands of low agricultural potential where increased population has resulted in competition for land between people and wildlife. The proximity of national park areas to peasant lands has been a major source of conflict but the new development programme has removed this conflict by rationalizing land use policy. Traditional land use continues, but peasants are encouraged to participate in wildlife management on a commercial basis as shareholders. The accruing benefits are used to fund rural development projects.     

The living commons of West Tyrol,Austria: Lessons for land policy and land administration

A right of commoners to pastures existed since the Early Middle Ages in Anglo-Saxon England and the European mainland, including Tyrol in Austria. Lowland commons institutions were largely dissolved by the 19th century; however, in the European Alps contiguous commons remain alive. Some two thousand alpine commons institutions are registered in the Tyrolean parcel cadaster and land registry. A specific study of West-Tyrolean commons (known as Agrargemeinschaft or AGMs), framed by Ostrom's design principles is presented. General lessons for land policy and land administration are extracted. An interview period was split between the Inn valley and the Ötztal. Roughly half are considered independent: others are regulated by the Tyrolean Agricultural Authority. Some AGMs hold the full bundle of land rights: others only hold pastoral and forestry rights. AGMs consisted either of a single cadastral parcel or several contiguous parcels. In the Inn valley villages the pastoral commons were owned by the municipalities, while in the researched Ötztal, AGMs are frequently the full owners of the commons. AGM membership ranges between 5 and 60 farm households. The number of livestock units pastured was in most cases stipulated in approved regulations. Alpine commons larger than 200 ha are also hunting-zones: revenue is collected from the lease of hunting rights. Most of the alpine commons are designated and used as ski-zones. Upper portions of two alpine commons in the Ötztal are state protected natural areas. The number of farms with pastoral rights is declining at District and State level. Key lessons for land policy and land administration include: Ostrom's design principles being a precondition rather than a panacea; commons institutions requiring one clear ownership party; both public and collective ownership producing success; publically owned commons requiring a local representative; small membership numbers being preferable; small shareholdings not being preferable; decentralized governance being beneficial; internal democratic elections being beneficial; internal boundary records being superfluous; explicit sanctions being superfluous; mixed economies being acceptable; and geography being a significant influence on the longevity of pastoral commons.     

差别化土地管理理论解释及政策体系建设

我国土地资源存在明显的空间异质性,若采取统一的管理模式必然导致土地资源错配和效率损失。[目的]探索精细化、差别化的土地管理模式,实现土地资源针对性、有效性管理,是促进土地资源集约节约利用、提高土地资源配置效率和利用效益的重要途径,也是土地供给侧改革的重要着力点。[方法]运用理论模型法和文献综述法对差别化土地管理原理和政策含义进行了阐述,构建了差别化土地管理政策体系,并完善了政策支撑体系。[结果]差别化土地管理是集时间、空间、地类和产业、部门等为一体的差别化国土管理模式;差别化土地管理目标是在提高土地资源利用效率的同时兼顾社会公平;差别化土地配置效率较普适性配置模式更高。[结论]可从建设用地差别化、产业供地差别化和用途管制差别化等方面构建差别化土地管理政策框架体系,从试点、补偿、监管等方面配套政策支撑体系,提高土地资源利用效率的同时,保障社会公平。     

Anticipating a new conservation bureaucracy? Land and power in Indonesia’s Essential Ecosystem Area policy

As an emerging policy in Indonesia, “Essential Ecosystem Areas” (EEA) is being established as an instrument to expand protections for conservation areas at sites beyond the classical domain of the conservation bureaucracy. The policy impetus is from recent global research identifying high conservation values located outside of formally designated conservation areas. EEA policy provides a foundation for justifying conservation practices at sites based on high biodiversity indicators, but which might not have previously held formal protections. This policy instrument is particularly unique in Indonesia because it is envisioned to support initiatives that emerge voluntarily, even in areas that might not have been historically thought of as conservation areas. This is unusual because it applies to all land categories, including private and public lands. In this article, we introduce the EEA policy and identify the potential applications it might have, considering the possibilities for future conservation area management in Indonesia. In particular, we identify some key principles for researchers and practitioners to follow when assessing EEA implementation. Our organizing framework consists of several elements based on existing land and power characteristics, which we connect to the institutions that might emerge amidst these new policy arrangements. We apply the land and power framework to two emerging EEA sites in Sulawesi to anticipate the extent to which the policy suggests a future trajectory for conservation management, or whether conservation policy will remain tied to existing rigid bureaucratic structures. Findings from the two cases point to the continued primacy of the centralized conservation bureaucracy, indicating that EEA sites are being negotiated through the classical approach for administering conservation areas.     

A multi-criteria model for land valuation in the land consolidation

Land consolidation is an effective technique in land management that contributes to sustainable rural development. Land valuation is one of the most important steps in land consolidation because it plays an important role in the reallocation process. Land valuation is also an important problem in Turkey as in many countries in the world. Because the lands will be reallocated at the end of the consolidation process, it is very important to determine the precise value of each parcel. However, the methods used in land valuation in many countries lag behind current techniques and technologies. For this reason, a new method for land valuation is needed. The purpose of this study was to develop a new model based on multi-criteria calculations that is suitable for today's technologies and addresses the weakness in the current land valuation methods. In a case study of Solak, Antalya, Turkey, we identified fourteen key land value factors. Those factors were assigned weights by the Land Valuation Committee, academic staff, engineers, and local landowners. The weights were then integrated into a framework called the Land Quality Index. The land quality index factors are the criteria for evaluating the geographical, physical, and socio-economic structure of the region. The scores for each factor on each parcel were determined using GIS software. The total score of fourteen factors was then converted to a 100-point scale, that comprised the Land Quality Index. The land value of each parcel was determined by adding the soil index to the Land Quality Index. In our study, we also created three different models to investigate how the parameters were apportioned during the land valuation. We found that, while the current method used by the government agency (General Directorate of State Hydraulic Works) classified the lands into five groups, our methods classified the lands into 17, 20, 24 groups, respectively. In addition, while the deduction rate was 4.97 % in the current method, they were 4.89 %, 4.86 % and 4.85 % in our new models, respectively. The method we proposed in this study determined land values more accurately, precisely, and fairly compared to current method used by General Directorate of State Hydraulic Works. It is suggested that our models could be used instead of the current method in the land consolidation works in Turkey.     

A model of shifting cultivation: can soil conservation reduce deforestation?

Shifting cultivators manage soil not only by adjusting soil use on already‐cleared lands, as in continuous cultivation, but also by clearing forests to obtain new fertile soils. This study examines the crucial link between on‐farm soil conservation and deforestation in shifting cultivation by modeling forest clearing as an investment in soil for a private farmer. More generally, by doing so the study attempts to integrate deforestation and soil conservation models which have been separately developed in the literature. Our policy goal is to arrest tropical deforestation—as destruction of global commons—caused by land degradation in shifting cultivation while improving the well‐being of poor shifting cultivators. Our integrated approach enables joint policy analyses of deforestation and land degradation. Three welfare‐enhancing policies are considered. The first is agricultural and nonagricultural subsidies affecting farm and nonfarm income opportunities. The second is fiscal and tenure policies affecting discount rates. Our question is whether the link between forest clearing and soil fertility alters the outcomes of these two standard macroeconomic policies commonly found in the literature. The third policy (or program) is various soil conservation measures affecting soil regeneration and erosivity on already‐cleared lands. This article examines a very important question which has received little attention in previous theoretical works: can soil conservation reduce deforestation? This study confirms anti‐deforestation effects of the promotion of nonfarming activities—a common and often emphasized finding in previous works—among shifting cultivators. More importantly, it also demonstrates that improving various soil conservation measures not only discourages forest clearing among shifting cultivators but also tends to have greater effects on forest protection than promoting nonfarming activities. Contrarily, agricultural price subsidy or technological progress gives rise to the opposite outcome, and lowering the farmer's discount rate or improving tenure security encourages him/her to clear more forests just to accumulate soil.     

基于熵权TOPSIS模型的中国粮食安全评价研究

[目的]粮食安全事关经济健康发展、社会和谐稳定,是防范和化解系统性风险,维护国家安全的重要保障。对粮食安全发展水平进行评价研究是准确把握我国粮食安全发展现状、合理制定国家粮食安全相关政策措施的手段。[方法]随着我国进入新发展阶段,国家粮食安全被赋予新的时代内涵和新的发展目标。文章以我国粮食安全在新发展阶段所呈现出来的内涵和目标为导向,从供给能力、供给结构、绿色发展、经济效益以及基础支撑五个方面出发,构建了包括25个具体评价指标的粮食安全评价体系,并建立熵权TOPSIS模型对我国粮食安全发展水平的演变和现状进行评价研究。[结果]进入21世纪,我国粮食安全水平呈现出先下降后上升的发展态势,且对绿色发展、经济效益和基础支撑的重视程度逐年提升;提升我国粮食安全水平受到资源状况、科技水平、供给结构等因素的制约。[结论]保障和提升我国粮食安全水平,需要重点从耕地资源保护和利用、粮食科技支撑、国内外市场与资源整合等方面发力。     

Institutional innovation and policy support to facilitate small‐scale farming transformation in China

While the Asian food economy has been experiencing significant transitions, it is widely believed that little transformation has occurred in farm land operation. However, the recent rapid emergence of middle and large‐size farms in many regions of China is striking, as is the increase in size of operational units. The overall goal of this article is to understand small‐scale farm transformation in China based on a unique dataset surveyed in Northeast and North China. The results show that the institutional innovation through establishing land transfer service centers to promote land rental markets and reduce transaction costs, policy support to speed up land consolidation, and farm mechanization services are major driving forces in the recent evolution of China's farm operations. The article concludes with policy implications on small‐scale farming transformation in China and the rest of world and identifies research issues for further study.     

How and why large scale agricultural land investments do not create long-term employment benefits: A critique of the ‘state’ of labour regulations in Ghana

Support for large scale agricultural investments in Africa has been mainly premised on their employment prospects for local populations. However, despite earlier calls by Tania Li to centre labour in the land grabs debate, labour is generally invisible in both mainstream policy and academic research. This paper, through a governance lens, draws attention to the implications of the global land rush on wage labour. In principle, policy frameworks that emphasise the labour potentials from large-scale land investments also gravitate towards regulations that seek to facilitate capital accumulation and mitigate negative impacts on communities – congruent with Ghana’s policy direction. This paper assesses the political-economic context of the legislative gaps in the current governance framework for wage labour and large-scale agriculture in Ghana; characterised mainly by absent, illusively present and repressive institutions. It is supported with empirical findings from the nature of farm workers’ incorporation into a transnational oil palm plantation in Ghana, their struggles over the nature of the investment, and the political orientation of the existing regulatory institutions. The study calls for policy measures which address power relations that shape the distribution of benefits from land investments, and also recognise structural inequalities that exist in and outside of agriculture.     

Securing Women's Interests within Land Tenure Reforms: Recent Debates in Tanzania

This article is an account of the debates around the recent land tenure reforms in Tanzania. It focuses on the discourses of Government officials, academic researchers and NGO activists on the implications of the reforms for women's interests in land and the most fruitful approaches to the issues of discriminatory customary law rules and male–dominated land management and adjudication institutions at national and village levels. The article argues that from being marginal to the debates, women's interests became one of the most contentious issues, showing up divisions within NGO ranks and generating accusations of State co–optation and class bias. It illustrates the implications of the recent positive reappraisal of African customary laws and local–level land management institutions for a specific national context, that of Tanzania.     

Shaping the landscape: Agricultural policies and local biodiversity schemes

This paper analyses the potential effect of local agro-environmental policies in promoting multifunctionality in a rural landscape, with a two-scale modelling framework: a regional scale for food demand and a local scale for the forces driving land use. The framework has been designed in four steps. First, the relative influence of the driving factors on the current land use pattern has been analysed. Two scenarios are designed that vary the external demand for the total land use, and alter more or less quickly the specific location factors that drive the landscape pattern. The first scenario considers trends in the external and internal driving forces. The second relies both on totally decoupled farm subsidies and unregulated housing growth. In both scenarios a local agro-environmental policy is introduced and we compare its consequences with the previous scenario's landscape pattern. The third step consists of a modelling exercise that analyses the likely outcome of each scenario on the development of land use patterns on a local scale. Last, these landscape patterns have been translated into ecological indexes that assess the effect of the policy options on the multifunctionality of the local landscape.     

完善土地流转制度研究:国内“土地换保障”的研究述评

研究目的:回顾和评述"土地换保障"的已有研究成果,为后续研究奠定基础和明确方向。研究方法:文献研究法和比较研究法。研究结果:"土地换保障"有利于完善农村土地流转和社会保障制度,但需要依据自愿原则谨慎实施。研究结论:应当分类分层分步实施,以保护农民利益为基本准绳,通过生命历程和生命周期等理论分析农民的保障利益需求和代际间利益关系,探究土地流转制度创新和社会保障体系建设之间的契合点,探索出既有利于农业规模集约经营、又能够满足农民社会保障利益需求的制度安排,推进经济社会持续健康发展。     

Weaving cotton‐led development? Liberalization,cotton producer organizations,and uneven development in Burkina Faso

This article argues that the politics of scale in a nested hierarchy of cotton governance institutions in Burkina Faso are weighted against smaller producers, with what looks like success from a broader scale producing uneven development at the local scale. We show that at the national level, Burkina Faso has succeeded in increasing its output of cotton lint. At the local level, we see a differentiated outcome where the liberalization‐initiated system of shared liability has improved overall cotton cooperative management but this has come at a significant cost: the exit of poorer farmers from the cotton sector and an increasing debt burden on those individual farmers who remain. The novelty of this article is that it considers producers' institutions as a key level of analysis linking macro‐scale policy decisions to micro‐scale village and farm outcomes. The resulting analysis allows us to focus on the politics of scale, particularly the power relations of different actors and the ability to capture resources at different levels, as well as the role of multilevel institutions in producing differentiated outcomes.     

Land use,the environment and development in post-socialist Mongolia

This paper describes the economic policies that have transformed the pastoral sector in post-socialist Mongolia, and their impact on pastoral land use. These policies reflect the influence of development economists from the Asian Development Bank who have been advising the Mongolian government, and their conviction that exclusive private rights to land are a necessary precondition of an efficient rural market economy. These assumptions stand in marked contrast to indigenous Mongolian conceptions of rights over land, and the policy debate reflects the contested nature of knowledge of the Mongolian environment. However, far from preventing damage to the resource base, evidence suggests that these policies of land allocations may actually be exacerbating problems of pasture degradation. This paper argues that policies of this kind reveal a misunderstanding of the nature of Mongolian pastoralism and the conditions that have made it viable in the past. Although international development agencies lionize a romanticized notion of Mongolian “traditions” as reflecting a “respect for nature”, there is little appreciation of the actual institutions that successfully conducted pastoralism until recently, the concrete embodiment of Mongolian pastoral knowledge. Environmentalist agendas reflect a familiar western interest in promoting western conservationist ideology and establishing and expanding protected areas to harbour wildlife and biodiversity. Mongolian practices tend to be cast as “traditions” to be utilized for the greater goal of conservation as conceived of in western terms, rather than seen as part of wider social and political institutions of land use.     

农产品市场化对农户土地流入行为的影响研究——以江西省农户调查为例

随着中国市场经济的繁荣发展,农产品市场化程度不断提高,土地资源作为农业生产最重要的物质基础,农业经营者在一定的制度环境约束下将土地围绕外部利润进行博弈,选择更加有利的土地经营方式,成为土地流转的主要驱动力。文章利用江西省834份农户调查样本数据,运用Heckman两阶段模型实证分析了农产品市场化对农户土地流入行为的影响。研究结果表明农产品市场化对农户土地流入行为存在显著的影响,主要表现在离农贸市场距离、农产品销售比例等变量上。另外,农业劳动时间比、土地细碎化与户主年龄、性别、教育年限、务农年限及5年内担任村干部亲属的人数、参加农村合作社等因素均对农户土地流入行为产生不同程度影响。基于此,该文对如何有效引导与推进农村土地市场化流转提出了加快农贸市场超市化改造,完善农产品流通模式;建立健全农村社会保障体系,替代土地的社会保障功能;大力发展农村教育,提高农业经营者的文化素质与受教育水平;鼓励农户在自愿基础上成立土地股份型农民专业合作社,引导农民由传统的产销合作向新型的产权合作方向发展等政策建议。     

Organizing anarchy: The food security–biodiversity–climate crisis and the genesis of rural land use planning in the developing world

Shortfalls in global food production, coupled with the growing visibility of climate change's disruptive effects, have underlined for many observers the importance of devoting rural lands to their ‘optimal’ use, where they can make maximal contributions to the global imperatives of feeding the human population and maintaining vital environmental services. In this context observers have endorsed rural land use planning as a way to insure that, at least in theory, lands get devoted to their best uses. In practice, land use planning in the developing world has resembled ‘organized anarchy’. Small landholders with insecure land tenure, overseas investors seeking large land deals, NGOs representing indigenous peoples, government officials, and staff from international environmental NGOs and multilateral organizations have come together in strategic action fields to struggle over and sometimes negotiate land use plans for contested landscapes. These plans represent a strategic, spatially explicit response to the climate change–biodiversity–food security crisis.