Abstract:
Urbanization in current China has brought profound changes in every phase of social life and modern agriculture. Specifically, the rural labor migration to cities and towns has posed a significant challenge on the contract management between household and cultivated land during agricultural modernization. The transfer of rural contracted land-use rights is gradually becoming a heat dispute in the basic rural management system. The stable land contract relationships need to be maintained in the countryside over the long term, while it also needs to strengthen supervision of and services related to the exit of rural contracted land-use rights for the standardized and intensive agriculture. During this time, the withdrawal rights of farmers' land contract can be a major management measure in China's rural land reform, in order to promote the moderate urbanization of rural land on a larger scale. In this study, seven exit modes in scenario simulations were established to analyze the exit decision-making of farmers under different conditions based on the exit policies that have been implemented in some typical pilot areas in the country. Survey questionnaires from 279 field farmers were made to clarify the influencing factors of farmers’ exit decisions on different modes under scenario simulation. A single factor analysis was used to analyze the 16 potential influencing factors from the four feature dimensions in turn, where a Chi-square test was utilized to evaluate the significant level of the variables for the selection of the single factor analysis in the multiple order. A Logistic regression was used to reveal the factors that influence farmers' decision-making on the withdrawal of land contractual management rights. The results show that: 1) Under different scenarios, the interviewed farmers have various willingness to accept the exit mode. In the exit modes that implemented in Neijiang, Sichuan and Chengdu, Sichuan, farmers expressed their willingness to accept accounted for 63.08% (Neijiang mode) and 53.05% (Chengdu mode) of the total sample. The acceptance rate of farmers was similar in Pingluo mode of 16.49% and in Meitan mode of 18.28%. There was a lowest acceptance rate of farmers in the Jinhu mode. A conservative attitude can occur in the farmers' exit decisions under various scenarios. The withdrawal decision of land tenure was mainly focused on the single-item exit and long-term exit of land contractual management rights, while the exit mode of “three rights withdrawal” was more cautious for the farms. 2) The regression results show that there are various influencing factors of farmers’ decision-making on exiting from different scenarios. The variable expected risk level has a significant impact on the exit decisions in the seven scenarios. If farmers feel that the expected risk level is relatively low, they are generally more inclined to withdraw from land contractual management rights. The ability of risk avoidance was stronger in other scenarios than that in the Wenjiang mode. If farmers think that they cannot afford the risk of exit completely, they usually choose not to quit the right of contract land. The type of household has a positive impact on the exit decisions in the Neijiang, Wenjiang and Chengdu modes, whereas, the quit willingness was even strong in the non-farm households. Whether there was abandonment or idleness in the contracted land has a significant impact on the Liangping, Meitan and Jinhu modes. Specifically, farmers with abandonment or idleness land were more willing to withdraw from land contractual management rights. This finding can provide policy implications for the establishment of diversified exit modes to clarify withdrawal mechanism of land contraction management right.