Land improvement: the support of economic growth

(A) the driving force of economic growth

1. Input of land elements and national economic growth

Land has many functions, such as production function, bearing function, landscape function and commodity function. Among them, the bearing function refers to the place where land provides human beings with residence, rest, entertainment and production. The function of commodities means that when there is a contradiction between supply and demand of scarce land resources, the ownership or use right of land can circulate like commodities, thus bringing benefits to the owners. The increase of population leads to the increase of land investment demand, which is the pursuit of carrying capacity. It is the pursuit of commodity function to realize economic development by changing the land use structure. From the present stage, the influence of commodity function on the demand of land use change is more obvious, which makes the land use structure closely linked with economic growth. Different economic growth modes will inevitably lead to changes in land use structure.

The mode of economic growth refers to the combination of production factors and their use. The division of economic growth mode is mainly determined by the contribution of economic growth factors (capital, land, labor, technology, etc.). ) From the development course of human society, the mode of economic growth has experienced the transformation from agriculture to industry, and then to the tertiary industry, and the era of new knowledge economy dominated by information technology. In an agricultural society, urban growth is slow, and economic growth does not require a lot of non-agricultural capital and labor input, so the change of land use, such as the change from agriculture to non-agricultural land, is in a slow growth stage. In the stage of industrialization, traditional capital and labor input are the main pillars of economic growth, and the demand for commodity functions of land elements has begun to increase sharply. When the mode of economic growth changes to the tertiary industry as the leading factor, driven by technological progress, or reaches the stage with information technology and knowledge economy as the core, the demand for the commodity function of land elements will be relatively reduced. The above is the basic law between land factor input and economic growth.

Therefore, economic growth is the decisive factor for the change of land use structure, and different stages of economic development have different demands for land input. With the rapid development of industrialization and urbanization, the phenomenon that economic growth leads to the increase of land input in non-agricultural sectors has been confirmed worldwide. In1966 ~1986 (van kooten, 1993), Canada developed 300,000 hectares of agricultural land into urban land. From 1950 to 1979 in Japan, the loss of high-quality farmland caused by industrialization is1330,000 hm2. In the process of industrialization in Taiwan Province Province, China, about 5,000 hectares of paddy fields are converted every year. Chinese mainland is in a period of rapid industrialization and urbanization. According to statistics, from 1978 to 2006, the construction land occupied nearly 300,000 hm2 annually, and the trend of agricultural land reduction is still accelerating, which may not be reversed in the short term (Chen, 2003).

From this, we can find that the input of land elements has played a very important supporting role in China's national economic growth during the transition period and the in-depth stage of industrialization. This will inevitably bring about the contradiction between the scarcity of land factor supply and demand growth, and also cause the contradiction between economic growth and land factor protection, especially agricultural land (cultivated land) protection. In order to alleviate this contradiction, we can only start with reducing demand (that is, changing the mode of economic growth) and increasing total supply or improving supply efficiency. Rural land consolidation is an important means to improve the supply efficiency of land elements.

2. Rural land consolidation and input of land elements

Traditional land consolidation (consolidation) mainly refers to the comprehensive consolidation of cultivated land, water, roads, forests and villages by means of economy, administration, law, engineering and technology according to land development and consolidation planning, overall land use planning and overall urban planning, so as to improve the quality of cultivated land, increase the effective area of cultivated land, improve agricultural production, life and ecological environment, and achieve the purpose of protecting agricultural land resources and promoting the sustainable utilization of agricultural land resources. On the other hand, it also provides a potential supply for urban construction land to occupy agricultural land, that is, to increase the input of land elements needed for national economic growth.

The new content of linking the increase and decrease of land consolidation further increases the flexibility of land input distribution between agriculture and non-agriculture, and provides a feasible way to expand urban construction land input on the premise of ensuring the quantity and quality of agricultural land not to be reduced.

Therefore, in the case of scarce land resources and limited investment in land elements, rural land consolidation is an effective means to alleviate the scarcity pressure and raise the upper limit of investment. In this way, rural land consolidation is also linked to the growth of the national economy.

3. Rural land consolidation and national economic growth

When rural land consolidation is no longer just an act of repairing and improving the natural attributes of land resources, but a value act of improving the socio-economic attributes of land resources, the economic connotation of rural land consolidation is more abundant.

First of all, rural land consolidation has economic benefits. Through the maintenance and construction of rural roads and water conservancy facilities, land consolidation can improve rural infrastructure and agricultural production conditions, reduce agricultural production costs, improve agricultural land production efficiency, and lay the foundation for improving farmers' income level and promoting rural economic development. Land consolidation can improve living facilities, living conditions and the quality of life of residents through the arrangement of rural residential areas; Land remediation can increase the effective cultivated land area and improve the quality of cultivated land through farmland leveling, wasteland development and wasteland reclamation, thus ensuring national food security and meeting the basic survival needs of all citizens.

Secondly, rural land consolidation has promoted the sustained growth of the national economy. Rural land consolidation has increased the supply potential of land input to industry and tertiary industry, and ensured the sustained growth of national economy to a certain extent. This is the most important economic connotation of rural land consolidation at this stage.

Third, rural land consolidation has a complete economic driving mechanism. When rural land consolidation has economic benefits, there must be a complete set of economic driving mechanism to regulate the planning, design, implementation, supervision and subsequent use of rural land consolidation. This economic mechanism is the most active factor to reflect the value of resources under the market economy system, and it is also the premise to realize the non-market value of land resources such as ecology and society.

Fourth, rural land consolidation should be combined with the national economic system. Rural land consolidation, while supporting sustained economic growth, is bound to be closely related to the national economic system. Especially in China, when the supply of land elements is interfered by the government, land consolidation can be similar to the government's fiscal policy and monetary policy, and become a means for the government to regulate the national economy.

(B) means of economic control

1. "Land Consolidation" and National Economy

Fiscal policy and monetary policy are two major means of macro-control. In developed, sound and perfect market economy countries, the main task of macro-control is to ensure the basic balance between total supply and total demand, and the specific goals are the balance of economic growth rate, full employment rate, inflation rate and balance of payments.

Due to the special national conditions of China's land resource endowment, it is an inevitable choice to regulate the economy according to China's land supply capacity. In addition, a series of legal systems in China, such as land use control, agricultural land conversion, and unified supply of construction land, enable the government to have strong control over land supply, and can effectively guide the direction and intensity of investment and consumption by actively adjusting the total amount of land supply and arranging different land uses, so as to achieve the purpose of economic operation regulation. Since 2003, the central government has regarded the land policy as an important means of national macro-control, entrusted the land and resources management department with the important responsibility of participating in macro-control, realized the supervision of the quantity and structure of fixed assets investment from the source, and curbed the "overheating" trend of local investment.

Through the design of the objectives, control tools, transmission mechanism and supporting policies of land participation in macro-control, through the coordination of land control policies with national fiscal policies, monetary policies, industrial policies and regional development policies, and through the total amount, layout, structure and time sequence of land supply, practice has proved that land policy is the most direct and effective control means at present.

The performance of land regulation on national economic growth is mainly reflected in that it not only meets the guidance of investment demand, but also regulates investment demand together with monetary policy; It not only meets the demand for industrial land, but also promotes the transformation of industrial structure and economic growth mode; It not only gives full play to the regional advantages, but also promotes the rational distribution and coordinated development of the region. At the same time, actively cooperate with monetary policy, fiscal policy and industrial policy, and strictly control the land gate, which has achieved remarkable results in recent years.

2. Land improvement and "land consolidation"

The most important means of land regulation is to guide investment and industrial land demand, and promote the adjustment of industrial structure and the transformation of economic growth mode. Guiding investment and industrial land demand are realized through the supply of land elements. When land consolidation becomes an effective means to alleviate the pressure of land scarcity and raise the upper limit of land input, land consolidation is closely combined with "land regulation".

Especially since the introduction, pilot and implementation of the policy of linking increase and decrease, land consolidation has been formally written into the document of the Central Committee 1 in 2009 and the government work report of Premier Wen Jiabao. In 2009, the Ministry of Land and Resources issued "Several Opinions on Promoting the Stable Development of Agriculture, Increasing Farmers' Income and Promoting the Coordinated Development of Urban and Rural Areas", and also made specific arrangements for the "Ten Thousand Villages Land Renovation" project. In this new situation, the role of rural land consolidation in land regulation is very obvious, and it has also been paid attention by the government at this stage.

(C) the embodiment of economic performance

1. Increase cultivated land area and promote agricultural production.

Land consolidation is the general name of land consolidation, development and reclamation, which can increase the land area. Land consolidation can adjust the pattern of agricultural land utilization, reduce the area of ridge and expand the effective agricultural land area by sorting out the existing inefficient and disorderly agricultural land utilization; Land development through the development and utilization of unused wasteland resources, new agricultural land area; Land reclamation is to restore the state of land use by rectifying the damaged and abandoned land caused by excavation, collapse, occupation and natural disasters in production and construction, reclaim it into agricultural land and increase the area of agricultural land; All these indicate that land consolidation can increase the effective cultivated land area.

2. Improve the quality of farmland and increase agricultural productivity.

The quality of agricultural land is the synthesis of various factors and environmental conditions that constitute agricultural land, which is manifested in the level of agricultural land production capacity, the quality of agricultural land environmental conditions and the quality of agricultural land products. According to the deepening degree of connotation, agricultural land quality can be divided into three parts: natural quality, environmental quality and economic quality. Among them, natural quality mainly refers to agricultural land productivity determined by natural conditions such as light and heat, soil, moisture and slope. Land remediation can change farmland slope and increase soil fertility and water content through land leveling, soil stripping and fertilization irrigation projects, thus improving farmland quality and increasing its yield.

3. Realize the scale management of agricultural land and increase farmers' income.

Under the traditional rural land system in China, the distribution of agricultural land is mainly based on the village collective, according to the fair principle of "everyone is equal" and based on population. Villagers have the right to get a grain ration field, and each labor force can get a responsibility field. With the continuous increase of rural population, the limited arable land resources are becoming more and more detailed, and some places are divided equally according to the advantages and disadvantages, and the plots are smaller. In addition, the contract period of household contract responsibility system is generally more than 15 years, which makes it very difficult to timely concentrate and scale management of agricultural land. Through engineering means, land consolidation can change the original farmland pattern, merge sporadic plots, reduce the area of ridges, adjust the ownership of land, and moderately expand the area of farmland, which is conducive to realizing the scale operation of farmland and increasing farmers' income.

4. Improve agricultural land production conditions and increase production efficiency.

Through land leveling engineering, irrigation and drainage engineering, field road engineering, farmland protection and ecological environment maintenance engineering, land remediation can expand the area of farmland, improve the efficiency of irrigation and flood drainage, improve the efficiency of mechanical operation and crop transportation, reduce the area of farmland soil erosion, enhance the ability of farmland to prevent sand and wind, and finally improve the comprehensive production conditions of farmland.

5. Beautify the farmland landscape and improve the living standard.

Farmland landscape refers to a neat and regular beautiful scene composed of field shapes, ground crops and green plants. Land consolidation breaks the scattered and disorderly state of the original farmland, merges small and irregular plots into neat and regular large plots, and visually increases the aesthetic feeling of farmland patches; Through the greening around farmland and along irrigation and drainage channels, a certain landscape corridor is formed; Through the combination of crop types and variety improvement, a certain landscape matrix is formed. The planning and design of farmland landscape pattern in land consolidation is helpful to beautify farmland landscape.

6. Promote the balance of cultivated land occupation and compensation, and solve the contradiction between urban construction and cultivated land protection.

At present, the allocation of land resources in China is mainly achieved through the overall land use planning, and the allocation of various land use indicators in the land use planning is the fundamental way for the central government to determine the allocation of land resources. The existing index decomposition system not only effectively controls the sharp reduction of agricultural land resources, but also ensures the implementation effect of land use control to a certain extent, and completes the spatial allocation of agricultural land ownership to a certain extent. However, with the advancement of urbanization, this policy of balancing cultivated land occupation and compensation is limited by the endowment of land resources in some economically developed areas, that is, the potential of cultivated land development and reclamation is not enough to supplement the occupied cultivated land. Land consolidation first provides a way to improve the potential. Secondly, the policy of linking increase and decrease has further eased the contradiction between urban land demand and agricultural land protection without violating the balance of cultivated land occupation and compensation.