Transfer or Surrender Rural Homestead Land? An Investigation of farmers' Preferences in China

With rapid industrialization and urbanization in China, a large rural population has migrated to cities and left their rural homestead land (RHL) idled. Land use policy on RHL utilization is crucial to the efficient use of land resources. However, due to farmers' limited knowledge of regulations and lack of participation in rural land governance, their preference is sometimes overlooked in the policy-making process. The purpose of this paper is to examine farmers' preferences for the two primary RHL utilization programs, i.e., transfer and surrender. We conducted a farmer household survey of 405 households in rural areas in Changchun at Jilin Province, China in 2018 and estimated farmers' willingness to participate in the mechanisms using a bivariate ordered probit model. Various options under the two mechanisms are also investigated. We find a positive correlation between rural households' willingness to participate in these two mechanisms. This is the first comprehensive study taking into consideration the correlation and tradeoff in farmers' choice between the two mechanisms. The results shed light on the heterogeneity of households' needs and interests in RHL utilization, an important component to be considered in rural development policy-making decisions.