Qiufeng LI, Haixia MA

1. Party School of the CPC Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region Committee, Urumqi 830002, China; 2. Xinjiang Normal University, Urumqi 830017, China

Abstract The problem of identifying and absorbing new demand subjects in the operation of land trusteeship in X Prefecture is prominent. Under the guidance of studying the willingness of farmers in X Prefecture to participate in land trusteeship, this paper makes statistical analysis and empirical analysis. Finally, it is concluded that the willingness of farmers to participate in land trusteeship is related to farmers’ agricultural operation, farmers’ awareness of land trusteeship and incentive factors related to government policies. The better the situation of farmers’ agricultural operation, the lower their trusteeship willingness. Farmers’ awareness of land trusteeship and policy-related incentive factors play a positive role in promoting their willingness.

Key words X Prefecture, Land trusteeship, Trustor, Willingness analysis

1 Introduction

Land trusteeship is another innovation of land management system after land transfer. Since 2014, with the strong support of the State Agricultural Development Office, the pilot work of land trusteeship has been launched, which has achieved initial results after several years of practice, and shows strong vitality and broad prospects. This kind of innovation system solves the problem of "who will farm the land" and "how to farm the land". X Prefecture is an innovative pilot area of land trusteeship in Xinjiang, it is of great practical significance to study the current situation and operation of land trusteeship in X Prefecture. At present, X Prefecture has a good land scale foundation, a high level of technical support for comprehensive agricultural mechanization, and the scale of land trusteeship is constantly expanding. Professional cooperatives and supply and marketing cooperatives have become the main body of the social service of land trusteeship. And it has formed a land trusteeship service pattern, and the principal-agent mode of operation has initially emerged. However, problems such as the weak willingness of farmers to participate are prominent.

The essence of land trusteeship is the emergence of clientage, and farmers are vulnerable to loss of interests in the process of principal-agent game. Farmers are limited rational people, and when the contract period expired, farmers will no longer choose land trusteeship, that is, they will withdraw from the land trusteeship market. This means that under the condition of lack of management and supervision mechanism, the trustor in the existing land trusteeship market is gradually reduced. However, X Prefecture is a late-developing area of land trusteeship, there are not many farmers who can rationally recognize land trusteeship, and those who dare to try account for a minority. The serious shrinkage of the trustor is bound to affect the development of land trusteeship in X Prefecture. Thus it can be seen that with the establishment of institutional norms, the participation willingness of potential trustors needs special attention, that is, the research on how to better encourage farmers to participate in land trusteeship is particularly important. In the existing research, Zhang Xuan[1]conducted the analysis of the willingness of farmers to participate in land trusteeship in Shenyang and found that the greater the opportunity for farmers to obtain non-agricultural employment, the more comprehensive their understanding of land trusteeship, and the more the lack of agricultural machinery at home, the stronger the willingness to participate in land trusteeship. Through a survey of three sample cities in Jiangsu Province, Xiao Jianyingetal.[2]found that the higher the educational level of farmers and the higher their monthly income, the stronger their willingness to accept trusteeship. In addition, their cognitive behavior and attitude of participating in land trusteeship also play a positive role in farmers’ acceptance of land trusteeship. Based on the research on land trusteeship demand behavior of grain farmers, Han Peipei[3]found that the land trusteeship demand behavior of general farmers is significantly influenced by farmers’ personal characteristics, farmers’ cognition of land trusteeship and their family land characteristics.

Based on the existing research[4-6]combined with the characteristics of farmers in X Prefecture, this paper makes an empirical analysis on the factors that may affect farmers’ participation in land trusteeship in order to draw relevant conclusions. The purpose of this paper is to lay a foundation for putting forward reasonable suggestions to enhance farmers’ willingness to participate and promoting land trusteeship in X Prefecture.

2 Data and sample description

2.1 Questionnaire designAccording to the existing research, the characteristics of farmers, agricultural business environment, government policies, farmers’ awareness of land trusteeship and so on have a certain impact on their willingness to participate in land trusteeship. In order to understand the willingness of farmers in X Prefecture to participate in land trusteeship, this paper analyzes the existing research results and the actual situation of X Prefecture, sorts out the following five influencing factors: farmers’ personal characteristics, household characteristics, farmers’ agricultural operation, farmers’ cognition of land trusteeship,etc.A total of 38 questions have been set around these five aspects.

First, the personal characteristics of farmers, including the respondents’ gender, age, education, social identity, physical health status. Second, the characteristics of rural households, including the family population, the quantity of labor force, family annual income, agricultural income, other economic sources and so on. Third, the situation of farmers’ agricultural operation, including the area of cultivated land, the degree of land dispersion, the area of evenly divided land, the types of planting, the number of types of agricultural machinery, the per unit yield of cultivated land and the average rent. Regarding the above aspects, we mainly consider the influencing factors from an objective point of view. Fourth, farmers’ cognition of land trusteeship, including their awareness, recognition and psychological expectation of land trusteeship. Fifth, the factors related to government policy, examining whether the active participation of farmers can be promoted when the government adopts active policies.

2.2 Data sourcesAll the data used for empirical analysis in this paper are obtained by semi-structured interviews, questionnaires and telephone interviews from October 2019 to March 2020. The survey is divided into three stages, and the first stage is the pre-research stage, mainly using semi-structured interviews. By visiting the relevant staff of the agricultural and rural bureau of X Prefecture, the agricultural machinery station of X Prefecture and the supply and marketing cooperatives of X Prefecture, we can understand the general situation of the development of land trusteeship in X Prefecture, and clearly know about the sample counties and cities (X City, B County and C County). The sample counties and cities have good economic foundation, high level of agricultural mechanization and convenient geographical location. They are the representative places for land trusteeship in X Prefecture, showing research value. In the second stage, with the help of the relevant staff, we contact the relevant responsible persons in the sample counties and cities, and once again obtain specific sample points through semi-structured interviews, including more representative trustors and participants, and communicate with the heads of multiple sample sites through telephone interviews, further adjust the structure of the survey and modify the questionnaire according to the actual situation, in order to enhance the pertinence and effectiveness of the questionnaire, and ensure that the questionnaire can cover practical problems more truly and comprehensively. In the third stage, we comprehensively use the methods of semi-structured interview, questionnaire and telephone interview with the representative planting professional cooperatives, agricultural machinery professional cooperatives and supply and marketing cooperatives to understand the current situation of the land trusteeship in X Prefecture and randomly enter the houses to understand the situation of the entrusting party of land, that is, farmers. In the interview with farmers, it is mainly aimed at the members who know more about family agricultural production. In this survey, through a random visit to 12 villages in three sample counties and cities, a total of 222 questionnaires were distributed and 222 questionnaires were recovered. After the information screening and processing of the questionnaires, 12 questionnaires had the problem of information invalidation, that is, the final number of valid questionnaires was 210, and the effective rate of the sample was 94.6%.

2.3 Sample feature analysisAmong the sample farmers, the proportion of men is 88.6%, nearly 1/3 of the farmers are 35-44 years old, and most of the farmers are over 45 years old, so it can be seen that the main force of local farming is the middle-aged and elderly. The proportion of farmers with junior high school education and below is 84.3%, while the samples with college education level and above is zero, which indicates that the education level of local farmers is generally low. 77.1% of them are ordinary farmers, that is, they earn all their income by farming and working, 12.9% are village cadres, and 10.0% are cooperative organizers. Most of the respondents believe that their physical health is at the average level, 7.1% of the farmers think that their health is not good, that is, they suffer from some chronic diseases, and 5.7% of the farmers have major diseases, which makes it difficult for them to move.

In this study, in accordance with the survey, the number of family members is divided into four grades, in which the proportion of families with 3 members is 45.7%, and the proportion of families with 4 members or more accounts for 48.5%, which indicates that the composition of families with many generations living together in rural areas is prominent. In the sample size, the proportion of families whose dependency ratio is greater than or equal to 1 is 51.4%, and many of them have a dependency ratio of 3, indicating that one labor force needs to bear the daily expenses of four people, which is enough to show the seriousness of the local dependency burden. The proportion of rural households with an annual income of less than 50 000 yuan is 27.1%, and the proportion of rural households with an annual income of 50 000-100 000 yuan is 40.0%. The proportion of rural households with cultivated land area of "3.33 ha and less", "3.33-13.33 ha" and "more than 13.33 ha" is 40.0%, 35.7% and 24.3%, respectively. The planting structure of local farmers is relatively simple, which is confirmed by survey data. 60% of farmers cultivate only one crop, and the risk is far greater than that of diversified cultivation. Similar to the planting structure of rural households, 65.7% of the farmers have only one type of agricultural machinery in their homes, that is, agricultural means of transport is mostly "small four-wheel tractor", and some farmers have small tillers in their homes, which means that the vast majority of families will have a variety of demands for trusteeship services when the labor force is insufficient. 64.3% of the farmers think that the per unit yield of their own plot is similar to that of the adjacent plots, and only 25.7% of the farmers have a prominent per unit yield of cultivated land.

From the perspective of farmers’ understanding of land trusteeship, 57.1% of farmers have heard of land trusteeship. The proportion of farmers who knew land trusteeship from relatives, friends and acquaintances, television, newspapers and network media, village committees and land trusteeship organizations, is 39.0%, 19.5%, 12.2%, and 29.3%, respectively. In the identification of difference between land trusteeship and land transfer, 60% of farmers think that land trusteeship and land transfer are different, 42.9% of the remaining farmers think that they are the same, and 57.1% do not know. 52.9% of the farmers think that land trusteeship has a greater risk than their own planting, 30.0% of them hold the opposite view, and a small number of them think that the risks of the two situations are similar. 61.4% of the farmers maintain a more optimistic attitude towards the development of land trusteeship, 24.3% hold the opposite attitude, and the rest hold a wait-and-see attitude. 52.9% of the farmers said that there was no trusteeship organization near their production and life site, 22.9% of the farmers said that there was trusteeship organization nearby, and 12.9% of the farmers said that they currently had a subsidy policy on land trusteeship. 65.7% of the farmers said that there was no local subsidy on land trusteeship, and 21.4% of the farmers said they were not clear about the information in this regard. Our research confirmed that X Prefecture has not yet issued a subsidy policy on land trusteeship, and if the government gives land trusteeship policy support, 55.7% of farmers say they are willing to adopt it, 12.9% of farmers say they will follow the trend. Judging from the results of the survey, this proportion of 12.9% can be transformed into the proportion of farmers who are willing to participate, that is, if the government gives policy support, it can encourage farmers to participate in land trusteeship to a greater extent. The increased proportion indicates the role played by the credibility and influence of the government.

3 Model construction and result analysis

3.1 Model settingThis stage mainly examines the willingness of farmers to participate in land trusteeship, and this paper selects the willingness of farmers to participate in land trusteeship as the dependent variable. The dependent variable is a classified variable, that is, in the process of sample survey, the farmers’ willingness to participate in land trusteeship can be divided into two cases: "willing to participate in land trusteeship, assigned a value of 1" and "unwilling to participate in land trusteeship, assigned a value of 0". The dependent variable examined in this paper is binary, and the value of this variable does not have an inherent sequential relationship. The general linear regression model requires that the explained variable should be a quantitative variable, while the explained variable in this paper is a categorical variable, so the general linear regression model is no longer applicable in this situation. In order to better study the problems that affect farmers’ willingness to participate in land trusteeship and explore the relationship between variables, binomial logistic regression analysis is used as a more suitable and effective method.

The empirical analysis ideas of binomial logistic regression are as follows:

(1)

where there are only two categories of dependent variables,Pis the probability of dependent variabley=1, and 1-Pis the probability ofy=0, so it can be written as:

(2)

Formula (2) shows that the probabilityPof farmers participating in land trusteeship is a non-linear function of explanatory variables (including farmers’ personal characteristics, household characteristics, farmers’ operation, farmers’ cognition of land trusteeship and other specific factors). In this equation,β0is a constant term, andβkis the partial regression coefficient of explanatory variables, and its symbols and numerical values show the direction and magnitude of the influence of explanatory variables on farmers’ participation in land trusteeship. Formula (2) indicates that the category in which farmers are unwilling to participate in land trusteeship is taken as a reference, and the comparison between farmers’ willingness to participate in land trusteeship and this reference category is conducted.

3.2 Variable descriptionIn order to ensure the effectiveness of the regression model, we screen the variables that have an impact on the change of farmers’ willingness to participate in land trusteeship from a professional point of view, and test the correlation between selected variables. One of the two variables with a correlation coefficient above 0.8 is selected. In addition, priority is given to the variables with complete data and low measurement error. The variables set in this paper are as follows: the willingness of farmers to participate in land trusteeship is selected as the dependent variable, that is, the explained variable (farmers are willing to participate in land trusteeship=1; farmers are not willing to participate in land trusteeship=0). The independent variable, that is, the explanatory variable, is still composed of five specific influencing factors, and the specific settings of each variable (symbols and definitions), as well as the mean of dependent variables are shown in Table 1.

Table 1 Variable description

3.3 Empirical analysisAfter using SPSS 20.0, binomial logistic regression analysis was used for the above variables. The "willingness of farmers to participate in land trusteeship" is set as a dependent variable, and the Forward: LR method is used. After seven steps of iteration, the likelihood-ratio chi-square statistic of the model is getting larger and larger, and when it comes to the best regression model, the chi-square value is 81.102 and the correspondingPvalue of 0.000 is less than the test value of 0.000, indicating the rationality of the model. After using Forward: LR method to construct the model, the -2 logarithmic likelihood value is 15.424, the relation strength coefficient "Cox & SnellR2" is 0.686 and "NagelkerkeR2" is 0.917, and the significant probability of the model is 0.000, indicating that the equation is reasonable and has a good fitting degree, which is consistent with the previous verification, and further verifies this characteristic. The regression equation finally includes seven explanatory variables, which are different from the influence categories originally designed. Based on the variable regression results, it is found that the factors affecting farmers’ participation in land trusteeship are mainly related to the agricultural operation of farmers, the cognition of land trusteeship and the relevant aspects of government policy.

(i) Farmers’ agricultural operation and their willingness to participate. The specific variables of farmers’ agricultural operation include the area of cultivated land, the type of planting, the number of types of agricultural machinery and the per unit yield of cultivated land. The first two have passed the significant level test of 5%, and it is negatively correlated with the area of cultivated land, that is, the larger the area of cultivated land, the smaller the willingness of farmers to participate in land trusteeship, but the influence of this factor is small. It is positively correlated with the type of planting, that is, the richer the planting structure of farmers, the greater their willingness to participate in land trusteeship. The reason why farmers enrich the variety of crops is to avoid risk, and secondly, to increase income. However, in the case of limited capacity, risk aversion and income increase show more significant uncertainty, so they are more willing to participate in land trusteeship. The regression coefficient of the number of types of agricultural machinery is negative and has passed the significance test of 10%, that is, the more types of agricultural machinery farmers have, the weaker their willingness to participate in land trusteeship, which can reflect the importance of mechanized production to farmers’ arable land. It also shows the fact that agricultural machinery replaces most of the manual work in the process of local agricultural production. When other explanatory variables are constant, the cultivated land with lower unit yield increases Logit (P) by 9.358 units, while the similar cultivated land yield increases Logit (P) by 7.562 units, that is, the per unit yield of cultivated land affects farmers’ willingness to participate to a great extent.

(ii) Farmers’ cognition and willingness to participate. The regression coefficient of "whether to know the situation of land trusteeship" is positive and has passed the significance test of 5%, that is, compared with those who do not know land trusteeship, "knowing land trusteeship" will increase farmers’ willingness to participate by 5.492 units. This shows that the provision of land trusteeship is in line with the needs of farmers for land management. In addition, determining whether farmers will eventually participate in land trusteeship is also highly related to farmers’ expectations of land trusteeship, which indicates the possible development prospects of land trusteeship. This expectation is based on the comprehensive score of the current agricultural development, the impression of the trusteeship organization, the trusteeship operation system, and the reliability of the trusteeship effectiveness.

(iii) Government policy incentives and willingness to participate. Compared with the situation that if there is policy support, the farmers will wait and see to participate in land trusteeship, farmers who are willing to choose trusteeship if there is policy support will finally maintain the same willingness to choose land trusteeship, while farmers who are unwilling to choose land trusteeship if there is policy support will also maintain a higher consistency in the actual choice, that is, the relevant policies can encourage farmers to participate in land trusteeship.

4 Conclusion

Through the model analysis, three main factors affecting farmers’ participation in land trusteeship and the related indicators are obtained. From the initial analysis framework and the final regression equation, the personal characteristics of farmers and the characteristics of their families do not have a dominant influence on their willingness to participate. In terms of agricultural operation, the specific variables that affect farmers’ willingness to participate are the area of cultivated land, the type of planting, the number of types of agricultural machinery and the per unit yield of cultivated land. It is not difficult to see that behind these variables are farmers’ consideration of their production input, efficiency and risk, that is, farmers’ evaluation of their own agricultural operation has a great impact on their willingness to participate in land trusteeship. According to the survey data, only 57.1% of the sample farmers have heard of land trusteeship, and 61.4% of them are optimistic about the future development of land trusteeship. And these two factors significantly affect farmers’ willingness to participate in land trusteeship, that is, farmers’ cognitive guidance of land trusteeship needs to be paid attention to. In addition, the incentive effect of government policies can also induce a stronger will for land trusteeship. Based on the above analysis, it can be concluded that guiding farmers to strengthen their awareness of land trusteeship and introducing relevant policies that can provide great incentive to farmers can improve their willingness to participate in land trusteeship from the outside, that is, it can expand the demand of land trusteeship market and promote the development of land trusteeship. Through the analysis of the factors that affect farmers’ willingness to participate in land trusteeship, it is also helpful for land trusteeship organizations to more accurately identify their potential customers, so that promoters can have rules to meet the needs of farmers.