Land tenure has been an important issue in China where the shortage of farmland appears to be serious. The current communal land-tenure system, which is derived from the Household Responsibility System (HRS), has inevitably led to land adjustment aimed at providing land to new members of the village community. The insecurity of land tenure due to land adjustment has thus been claimed to be responsible for the increasing land fragmentation and the absence of long-term investment on the part of peasants. However, this study finds that, most peasants prefer to adjust land in response to population change due to the shortage and instability of non-agricultural work as well as a strong preference for equality. More importantly, land adjustment has not caused more serious land fragmentation...[ Read more ]

Land tenure has been an important issue in China where the shortage of farmland appears to be serious. The current communal land-tenure system, which is derived from the Household Responsibility System (HRS), has inevitably led to land adjustment aimed at providing land to new members of the village community. The insecurity of land tenure due to land adjustment has thus been claimed to be responsible for the increasing land fragmentation and the absence of long-term investment on the part of peasants. However, this study finds that, most peasants prefer to adjust land in response to population change due to the shortage and instability of non-agricultural work as well as a strong preference for equality. More importantly, land adjustment has not caused more serious land fragmentation on the one hand, and is not responsible for the lack of peasants' incentive to make long-term investment, on the other. The introduction of the HRS has greatly influenced the peasants' allocation of time and labor, thereby making less available the resources of long-term investment on the part of peasants.