Search

This paper explores the situation of women left behind in villages when men out-migrate for work and what it implies for gender relations in rural China. It is based on questionnaire survey data that covers 400 left-behind women and extensive interviews in 10 rural communities. It reveals how the women take on multiple family responsibilities including mainly family care and agricultural production, and how they maintain their marital relationships in the context of a long separation. The discussion argues that even though the women's unpaid work becomes visible due to the absence of men in family life, there is a reaffirmation and reinforcement of gender traditions; women are more solidified in the unpaid and low-paid field of work in this new era of rural social transition in China. Moreover, separated married life has made women more vulnerable. In the end, it points to the fact that rural women are experiencing a new and deeper form of exploitation of their labour. Thus they are among those paying a heavy price for the development in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Land consolidation (LC) is regarded as a useful tool to improve agricultural production. Measuring the effect of LC on agricultural production (ELCAP) is helpful for the planning of LC activities. In the past, it is difficult to measure ELCAP at regional level due to the lack of field observation, the change of crop planting structure, and high cost of sample collection. Satellite data have large coverage and high spatiotemporal resolution for vegetation observation, which can provide a new idea for estimating ELCAP at regional level. This study aims to build a novel assessment framework to quantitatively investigate ELCAP by developing several satellite‐based metrics. In addition, this study also explored the characteristics of ELCAP using the method of spatial autocorrelation and the geographical detector method in 1,281 LC areas in China. Our results show that agricultural productivity in more than 90% of total LC areas shows an increasing trend during 2001–2016. LC could play the positive but limited effects on agricultural production, and its productivity‐boosting effect (64.87% of total LC areas) is greater than its stability‐improving effect (46.53% of total LC areas). The spatial agglomeration of ELCAP is weak (Moran's I < 0.06), which may be resulted from the differences in field conditions and natural‐social–economic situations across LC areas. The interaction between several factors has a greater effect on the ELCAP than each of these factors. Methodology in this study provides a new and useful framework for evaluating ELCAP, and results can be used to guide the planning of LC activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An agricultural production function is estimated using a Chinese county-level dataset along with associated geographic information. County-specific output-input elasticities are computed using the geographically weighted regression (GWR) and mapped with the geographical information system (GIS). A comparison of the ordinary least squares and GWR estimates confirms that allowing spatial variation in the parameters improves model fit of the agricultural production function, and provides valuable insights into the relative importance of inputs in different regions. Moran's indices reveal the spatial dependence of output per unit of land, and four inputs across regions. Mappings of GWR estimates help to detect a few clusters of high output-input elasticities: for labour in the Northeast, North, Southwest and Northwest China, for land in the Central and Southwest, for mechanical power in the North, Northwest and coastal area of the East and South and for fertiliser in the East. The county-specific scale elasticities suggest constant return to scale is likely to hold in the Central, East, Southwest and South. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Agricultural producer cooperatives are of great significance to the development of agricultural productivity and can provide improved economic welfare benefits to farmers. However, such organizations have not been well-developed in China. While China's new Cooperatives Law of 2007 has generated interest among scholars, very few empirical analyses have focused on the role of cooperatives in China's agricultural sector. The main objective of this study is to investigate the determinants of farmers' perception and their decision to participate in cooperatives, using a unique dataset from recently collected survey data of farming households in China's Jilin Province. The empirical results from probit and logit regression models suggest that educational attainment, risk comfort level, farm expansion, operational costs, geographic location and crop types are significant factors that influence producers' perception of cooperatives, as well as their participation behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]