Farmers’ Satisfaction with Land Expropriation System Reform: A Case Study in China

Abstract

Farmers’ satisfaction with reform of the land expropriation system has not been fully examined, so it is difficult to comprehensively and successfully judge the effectiveness of the reforms. Traditional statistical methods cannot accurately explain the relationship between the variables. In order to fully understand the implementation, progress, and applicability of land expropriation system reform, this paper analyzes the factors influencing farmers’ satisfaction, presents the shortcomings of land expropriation system reform, and puts forward improvement suggestions. Taking the land expropriation system reform pilot in Dingzhou city as an example, this paper investigates the satisfaction of the farmers who have had their land expropriated by establishing a structural equation model (SEM) to obtain feedback on the implementation effect of the pilot work. The results show that the factors affecting farmers’ satisfaction with the reform of land expropriation systems can be summarized into four variables: land expropriation compensation standard, land income distribution, land expropriation security mode, and land expropriation procedure. The parameter estimation between these four potential variables and their corresponding observation variables shows that, in the process of land expropriation, the comparison of land expropriation compensation standards and observation variables with market entry projects is an important factor affecting the satisfaction of farmers with regard to land expropriation. The income of municipal and county governments and village collective incomes have a great impact on farmers, indicating that the satisfaction of farmers is not only related to the absolute level of compensation and income, but is also affected by the relative level. In addition, providing farmers with a variety of reasonable security methods is an important element to enable the smooth progress of land expropriation. Furthermore, attention should also be paid to the formulation of land expropriation schemes and emergency plans to solve land expropriation conflicts.