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Institutional transition and implementation path for cultivated land protection in highly urbanized regions: A case study of Shenzhen, China
Land Use Policy 81 (2019) 493–501
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Institutional transition and implementation path for cultivated land protection in highly urbanized regions: A case study of Shenzhen, China
T
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Mo Sua, Renzhong Guoa,b, , Wuyang Honga a b
School of Resource and Environment Science, Wuhan University, Wuhan, 430079, China Research Institute for Smart Cities, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen, 518060, China
A R T I C LE I N FO
A B S T R A C T
Keywords: Cultivated land Land management Institutional transition Spatial optimization Shenzhen City
Cultivated land is a key resource and environmental factor for human survival and development, and internationally, special protection is generally imposed on cultivated land. China conducts the most stringent cultivated land protection system worldwide, but the restraint mechanism of rigid control with pure administration cannot change the continuous decreasing trend in the acreage and quality of cultivated land. Shenzhen, which is the city with the fastest economic growth in China and a highly urbanized area with a non-agricultural population, has very serious issues regarding cultivated land encroachment, spatially fragmented distribution, and land abandonment, which has rendered cultivated land protection extremely difficult. In this article, the present cultivated land protection situation in China and other countries is summarized, and the acreage change, spatial distribution, and land abandonment of cultivated land in Shenzhen are summarized and analyzed. Then, we propose an institutional framework for the transition of cultivated land protection in Shenzhen, which includes spatial optimization, management innovation, and safeguard systems. The implementation path to the transition of cultivated land protection includes a basic farmland reformation project, spatial usage control and zoning of cultivated land, tender and bid management for cultivated land leasing, and management innovation for facility agricultural land. The pros and cons of how non-agricultural populations impact cultivated land protection and the compound benefits, including the political, ecological, cultural, and technical aspects, of cultivated land protection in highly urbanized areas are discussed. This article notes the potential risks in management innovation in facility agricultural land. The proposed institutional framework for the transition of cultivated land protection and its implementation paths provide a reference for cultivated land protection and utilization in highly urbanized areas and suburbs with a heavy contradiction between economic growth and cultivated land protection in developing countries.
1. Introduction Cultivated land is a key resource and environmental factor for human survival and development. Cultivated land has multiple functions that include production, spatial bearing, and environmental protection and is a highly coupled social-economic-ecological compound system. For a long time, the huge population and excessive expansion of urban and rural construction land has caused huge demand pressures on the limited cultivated land resources, a heavy contradiction between economic development and cultivated land resource protection, a costly reduction of cultivated land resources, marginalization of cultivated land, and the persistent existence of cultivated land ecosystem degradation (King and Killingbeck, 1990; Nelson, 1992; Reenberg and Anette, 2001). These facts have driven academia to re-examine the
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management mode of cultivated land resources and promote the transition of cultivated land protection toward spatial optimization, management innovation, and safeguard implementation. Cultivated land protection stems from the extremely fast loss of high-quality farmland and the degradation of the land productivity capacity during the process of urban expansion. Globally, agricultural land protection generally has been implemented in a special manner through governmental intervention (Goodenough and Richard, 1992; Gorton and Matthew, 2001; Jacobs, 1997; Steiner, 1980; Sun and Cai, 2008). The intervention mainly includes the enforcement protection of agricultural protected areas through planning means, mandatory agricultural land protection policies through legal means, and development rights that can be traded in agricultural land through market means. The means of planning refers to the provision that agricultural land in
Corresponding author at: School of Resource and Environment Science, Wuhan University, Wuhan, 430079, China. E-mail address: [email protected] (R. Guo).
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2018.11.015 Received 6 August 2017; Received in revised form 10 November 2018; Accepted 10 November 2018 0264-8377/ © 2018 Published by Elsevier Ltd.
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Fig. 1. Cultivated land zoning in Shenzhen, China.
land protection policies, and cultivated land value. However, researches on the transition of cultivated land protection are still in the “interpretation-description” stage. Overall, China has formed a national compulsory executed institutional system that takes the system of land use control, the dynamic balance of total cultivated land, and the management and assessment policies for cultivated land as the core, the laws "Constitution", "Land Management Law", and "Agriculture Law" as the base, various policies and local regulations as the support. The institutional system is widely used in all parts of China. However, the restraint mechanism with purely administrative rigidity did not change the continuous decreasing trend of cultivated land in both quantity and quality, and the strict cultivated land protection system did not achieve the desired effect. In 2012, “General Plan of Land Management System Reform in Shenzhen” was approved by the former Ministry of Land and Resources of the People's Republic of China and the People's Government of Guangdong Province. Shenzhen took this as an opportunity to optimize innovatively the system of land use protection. For Shenzhen, the present status of "a huge population on very scarce land" has exacerbated the contradiction between "food and construction". Given the low acreage, inadequate quality, and fragmented spatial distribution of cultivated land, determining how to summarize and self-examine the costly loss of cultivated land brought by the high degree of urbanization and how to construct a highly efficient and scientifically cultivated land protection system are issues with great research and practical values to crack the problem of cultivated land and to alleviate the contradiction between urbanization and cultivated land protection. Therefore, in this article, we present the present situation and problems of cultivated land in highly urbanized areas, analyze the variation patterns and evolution trends of cultivated land, construct an institutional framework for the transition of cultivated land protection with spatial optimization, management innovation, and safeguard systems as the main content, and propose an implementation path to achieve this institutional transition. This study aims to provide references for the transition of cultivated land protection, the transition of land use, and the management of cultivated land.
the enforcement agricultural area cannot be used for non-agricultural purposes by delimiting urban development boundaries, urban construction areas, and agricultural areas (Pierce and Furuseth, 1982). The use of national mandatory forces is one of the simplest and most direct means of cultivated land protection (Juergensmeyer, 1981; Rose, 1984; Ward, 1991). According to the degree of economic development, cultural and educational levels, historical background, resource endowment, and legal system environment, different countries have established different legal systems for cultivated land protection. The most common market means is the land development rights transfer system implemented by the United States and European countries (Mabbszeno, 1981; Peterson and McCarthy, 1976). For instance, Barrows et al. discussed the issues in establishing and administering a transfer of development rights program, and Dorfman et al. focused on the potential for a market for farmland preservation (Barrows and Prenguber, 1977; Dorfman et al., 2009). The use of public money to purchase development rights for privately held land has become increasingly popular in recent years as a method to preserve agricultural land (Cai, 2001; Daniels, 1991; Du and Yuan, 2013, 2015; Jiang et al., 2011; Li, 2011; Lichtenberg and Ding, 2008; Liu et al., 2005; Tan et al., 2005). Another way to protect cultivated land is land consolidation and reclamation, which make use of engineering means to ameliorate land production conditions, increase cultivated land and improve agricultural quality. Japan, Germany, Finland and other countries attach great importance to land consolidation and reclamation and have established relatively mature and scientific institutions. They pay attention to the protection of land landscape and ecology, emphasize public participation, strengthen process supervision and management, establish a diversified funding channel, and ensure the quantity and quality of land consolidation and reclamation tasks through government intervention (Futian, 2007; Huijiao, 2009; Mingcai, 2002; Rong and Guanyin, 2004; Sun and Cai, 2008). Cultivated land protection is China's basic national policy and is an overall and strategic issue that relates to the development of economic and social sustainability. Up to now, there are already a lot of in-depth studies on changes in cultivated land and its mechanism, cultivated 494
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and less than 1000 m2 was 9%, accounting for only 2% of the total acreage. The proportion of cultivated land patches with acreage larger than 1000 m2 and less than 2000 square meters was 19%, accounting for only 5% of the total area (Fig. 4). The over-broken cultivated land pattern suggested that the majority of the cultivated land patches did not have the conditions for large-scale production.
2. Present cultivated land protection situation Shenzhen is the fastest growing city in China. From a population of less than 30,000 in the city in 1979, Shenzhen has become a megacity with a population of more than 10 million in 2010. The rapid urbanization has placed great pressure on cultivated land protection. In 2004, Shenzhen fully realized urbanization, with all of the peasants becoming an urban population and all rural land becoming state-owned. Cultivated land is no longer the means of production for the survival of the peasants, which further increases the difficulty level of cultivated land protection (Hu, 2009; Liu and Liu, 2011; Zheng, 2005). In 2016, the acreage of cultivated land in Shenzhen was 38.43 km2, The cultivated land zoning in Shenzhen are demonstrated in Fig. 1.
2.3. Serious problem with cultivated land abandonment In 2014, 40% of the cultivated land outside the scope of the basic farmland reformation project in Shenzhen was not used for cultivation. Some of the land had become forest land, grassland, and bare land, thereby leading to a quite serious land abandonment problem (Fig. 5). China implements the most stringent cultivated land protection system worldwide, which has effectively curbed the problem in which cultivated land is occupied by construction land. However, because agricultural income is still far lower than non-agricultural income, agricultural practitioners have chosen to take secondary and tertiary industry jobs in urban areas. As a result, a large amount of cultivated land was subjected to non-farming uses, which led to land abandonment over a long time frame. Land abandonment is the inevitable outcome when the lower agricultural income cannot compete with the higher income from non-agricultural development.
2.1. Sharp decline in the cultivated land area Relevant research has shown that the rapid decline in cultivated land is the normal outcome of economic growth, with the primary cause being the contradiction between economic development and cultivated land protection (Cai and Zhang, 2006; Huang, 1999; Lu et al., 1998; Zeng et al., 2009). The change process of cultivated land in Shenzhen can be divided into two stages。The first stage is from 1979 to 2008. Due to the lack of cultivated land protection system, the protection of cultivated land is out of control, and the area of cultivated land is sharply reduced. In 1979, the cultivated land in Shenzhen was 354.91 square kilometers (km2); in 2008, it decreased to 38.16 km2, with average annual decrease of 10.92 km2; The second stage is 2009 so far. With the gradual establishment of cultivated land protection system, the situation of rapid reduction of cultivated land has been completely terminated. The average annual cultivated land reduction area is controlled within 1 km2. Especially in 2013, due to the implementation of the basic cultivated land transformation project in Shenzhen, the cultivated land grew by 10.77 km2, the first increase in cultivated land since Shenzhen's history (Fig. 2).According to the statistics bulletin of Shenzhen’s national economic and social development from 2009 to 2016, the value added of first industry exhibited the first positive growth in 2014, and its annual growth rate from 2014 to 2016 began to increase yearly (Fig. 3).
3. Institutional framework for the transition of cultivated land protection In 2008, Shenzhen strictly followed the national requirements and established the cultivated land protection system, but the area of cultivated land continued to decline annually and the issue of land abandonment was not effectively addressed. In this context, Shenzhen explored the institutional transition of a cultivated land protection system and proposed the guiding concept of "promoting protection by utilization", which improved the income of cultivated land through multiple means, including capital, technology, and policy. The framework included three aspects: spatial optimization, management innovation, and safeguard systems. 3.1. Spatial optimization Spatial optimization refers to the means of adjusting the spatial distribution and layout of cultivated land through cultivated land survey, planning preparation, and plan implementation, in which engineering technologies are used to manually change the natural environment of the land. The major steps were as follows:
2.2. Fragmentation of the spatial distribution of cultivated land In addition to the reduction in the area of cultivated land, another outcome from the rapid expansion of the city is a substantial decline in the cultivated land quality. Cultivated land is cut off by urban land, resulting in a spatially fragmented area that is difficult to protect, develop, and utilize. In 2012, the proportion of figure spots of cultivated land with acreage less than 667 square meters (m2) in Shenzhen was 24%, accounting for only 1% of the total acreage of cultivated land. The proportion of cultivated land patches with acreage larger than 667 m2
1 To conduct a special survey of cultivated land, specifically the reserve resources of cultivated land, and to determine the quantity and quality of the cultivated land as well as the spatial distribution of the reserve sources that could be transformed to cultivated land.
Fig. 2. Changes in cultivated land acreage in Shenzhen, China, from 2009 to 2016. 495
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Fig. 3. The value-added of first industry of Shenzhen, China, from 2009 to 2016.
Fig. 4. Sketch map of the distribution of spatially fragmented spots of cultivated land in Shenzhen, China.
3.2. Management innovation
2 To perform cultivated land consolidation and supplementary planning for land development and reclamation, in which the centralized zones of the reserve resource of cultivated land were identified, the spatial range of land development and reclamation were delineated, and the total investment was calculated and predicted. 3 To implement the basic farmland reformation project. According to the cultivated land consolidation and supplementary planning for land development and reclamation, government investment was used to perform land leveling, soil improvement, and agricultural infrastructure construction, thereby forming centralized and contiguous high-quality cultivated land zones with a complete and sound infrastructure. 4 To control the spatial use of cultivated land. Centralized and contiguous high-quality cultivated land zones with a complete and sound infrastructure and the scattered and fragmented inadequate quality cultivated land zones that were difficult to utilize were identified, and core zones and buffer zones were categorized; differential measures of spatial use control were performed accordingly.
The management innovation of cultivated land policies in Shenzhen included the following: 1 Innovation of tendering and bidding in cultivated land leasing. In Shenzhen, modern high-tech agricultural enterprises were preferably selected using market tendering and bidding to achieve optimization of agricultural resources through the implementation of compensated land use. 2 Innovation of management systems of facility agricultural land. In Shenzhen, modern agricultural enterprises were encouraged to develop and construct facility agriculture. Through this process, threedimensional cultivations were achieved, thereby reducing the human power input and promoting the agricultural output value. Automated control of temperature and irrigation was also realized, which reduced production costs. Additionally, initial processing and packaging of agricultural products were achieved, which increased agricultural income (Wang et al., 2009). 496
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Fig. 5. Sketch map of the distribution of the actual utilization types of cultivated land in Shenzhen, China.
monitoring network mainly composed of those responsible for land protection and law enforcement inspectors was established to conduct periodic and regulatory inspections. According to the requirements of the regulations and policies, Shenzhen conducted remote sensing monitoring, land change surveys, and quality change monitoring for cultivated land. The annual cultivated land encroachment and the corresponding qualities were checked, and special surveys of cultivated land were conducted on a regular basis to check the actual utilization of the cultivated land. Since 2016, spatial dynamics monitoring of cultivated land has been conducted to determine the quarterly changes in cultivated land in terms of the following technique routine. Cultivated land is regularly shot using UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) and satellites, and the change of cultivated land is rapidly detected between two consecutive time phase images. Combined with field investigation and data analysis, illegal construction, abandonment and other irregularities could then be positioned accurately, which will be dealt with by the government law enforcement department in-time (Fig. 6).
3.3. Safeguard systems The safeguard systems for the transition of cultivated land protection included the following three aspects: legal basis, organizational mechanism, and monitoring system. 1 Legal basis. Since 2007, the Shenzhen Municipal Government has promulgated multiple regulatory documents, including "Implementation path of basic farmland construction and reformation in Shenzhen" (Shenzhen Government Office [2010] No. 99), "Tendering and bidding management in land leasing within the basic farmland protection zone in Shenzhen" (Shenzhen agricultural economic and trade information [2015] No. 248), and "Notice on the standardization of allocating basic farmland-serviced facility agricultural land– from the City Planning and Land Resources Commission and the City Economic and Trade Information Commission" (Shenzhen Land Planning Committee (2015) No. 345). These documents were used as policy support for the spatial optimization and management innovation. 2 Organizational mechanism. In 2007, the Shenzhen Municipal Government issued “Opinions on Strengthening the Protection of Cultivated Land and Basic Agricultural Land (Shenzhen Government Office [2007] No. 267). Accordingly, the Shenzhen Municipal Government established a leading group to take charge of cultivated land and provide basic farmland protection in Shenzhen, with the vice-mayor serving as the group leader and the city’s authorities, including Supervision, Planning, Land, Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, and government officials from all of the districts serving as members. Additionally, the cultivated land protection office was established in the Shenzhen City Land Resources & Real Estate Management Bureau to serve as the specialized agency for land planning and cultivated land protection. 3 Monitoring technology. "Opinions on Strengthening the Protection of Cultivated Land and Basic Farmland" also required periodic inspection of cultivated land protection through a survey of the land use status and monitoring using satellite remote sensing. A
4. Implementation paths for the transition of cultivated land protection 4.1. Basic farmland reformation project Since 2008, the Shenzhen Municipal Government has increased efforts to protect cultivated land and the capital investment and has conducted a 5-year basic farmland renovation project (the basic farmland reformation project is the special name used by Shenzhen City, whereas the common names are the land development, reclamation, and consolidation project or the land remediation project). The main contents of the basic farmland reformation project include the following: 1 "Special planning of cultivated land consolidation and supplementary planning for land development and reclamation in Shenzhen (2009–2020)" was composed. The achievements of this plan were 497
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Fig. 6. Institutional framework for the transition of cultivated land protection.
implementation into consideration; the technical procedure is shown in Fig. 5. The quality ratings for the cultivated land and the level of infrastructure facilities were evaluated first, and land with high-ranking quality and sound infrastructure was included in the core zone. The remaining land was categorized according to the analysis of the actual farming status and spatial layout, in which land that was abandoned, not used for farming due to construction purposes, and spatially scattered and fragmented was included as the buffer zone. Furthermore, of the remainder of the land, the land planned for use for construction or as a reservoir based on the analysis of the utilization of city planning and land planning was grouped into the buffer zone; all remaining land was included into the core zone (Fig. 7). Spatially, the core zone of the cultivated land was approximately 30 km2, which was higher than the 26.87 km2 planning acreage of cultivated land determined in “the overall planning of land use in Shenzhen (2016–2020)”. In this core zone, the most stringent cultivated land control was implemented, and land was leased to modern agricultural enterprises to ensure use efficiency, with a principle that land use should not be changed. The buffer zone was approximately 11 km2;
used for the registration of Shenzhen’s cultivated land reserve resources, which in turn were used to delineate 27 spatial ranges for land development and reclamation (basic farmland reformation zones). 2 “Implementation paths to basic farmland construction and reformation in Shenzhen" was drafted, which specified the missions and objectives, working procedure, engineering standards, sources of funds, organizational division of labor, and engineering acceptance of the reconstruction project. 3 The basic farmland reformation project was conducted. From 2008 to 2013, Shenzhen completed basic farmland reformation for 32,000 mu of land. Shenzhen also established a joint meeting system of basic farmland construction and reformation, and within those 5 years Shenzhen held 25 municipal government executive and office meetings to coordinate the work. The cumulative investment funds reached 1.612 billion RMB. After the reformation project, the distribution of cultivated land in Shenzhen City was highly centralized, creating the conditions for a mass agricultural operation. 4 Synchronously completing the task of high-standard farmland construction during the "13th Five-Year" period in Shenzhen. The reformation of basic farmland in Shenzhen has the characteristics of high capital investment and high standard of infrastructure construction. Construction standards such as land leveling, irrigation facilities, field roads and farmland fertility have reached or even exceeded Standard of Modern Standard Farmland Construction in Guangdong (Trial Version). Under such circumstances, the Shenzhen municipal government decided to combine the high-standard farmland construction with the basic farmland reformation project. The project has completed the planned task of building 30,000 mu of high-standard farmland.
4.2. Spatial usage control and zoning of cultivated land The entire cultivated land area in Shenzhen was divided into the core zone and the buffer zone. The rules used to divide the zones mainly took the quality ratings of the cultivated land, infrastructure construction level, actual utilization, spatial layout, and planning and
Fig. 7. Technical procedure of spatial optimization for cultivated land. 498
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Fig. 8. Outcome of spatial layout optimization for cultivated land.
tillage layer and affected the food security to a certain extent. China's facility agricultural management was in a period of contradiction, wherein the national agricultural authorities aggressively promoted the construction of facility agriculture, but the land and resource authorities strictly controlled the scale and location. Thoughts on implementing differentiated management of facility agriculture in Shenzhen were as follows: strict land use control was used in hardening facility agriculture to strictly control the construction scale and location and to ensure the productive capacity of the cultivated land, whereas cultivated land leasing enterprises were encouraged to set up film greenhouses with bamboo, wood, and steel frame structures above the tillage layer (Fig. 10). No control conditions are set on this kind of facility agriculture.
in this area, non-agricultural construction activities were controlled, and land could be reformed to woodland, park green land, or grassland with better ecological benefits according to the local conditions (Fig. 8). 4.3. Tender and bid management in cultivated land leasing All land is state-owned in Shenzhen, and the government can decide the users of cultivated land. Because traditional agricultural production generates low income and thus is not able to achieve the goal of "promoting protection by utilization", modern agriculture, science and technology agriculture, and facility agriculture are the methods used for the management of cultivated land in Shenzhen. In this context, the main responsibilities of the government were to achieve the optimized allocation of cultivated land resources and to ensure that the highquality cultivated land resources were under the management of excellent agricultural enterprises. Shenzhen gave full play to the role of the market in the resource allocation optimization process and was the first region in China to explore the market tendering and bidding mechanism in cultivated land leasing. The detailed procedures are shown in Fig. 9.
5. Discussion and conclusions 5.1. Discussion 5.1.1. Effectiveness of institutional transition safeguarded by the new concept “promoting protection by utilization” The core of institutional transition is to replace the traditional unilateral "rigid control" with the new concept of "promoting protection by utilization". Shenzhen constructed the institutional framework for the transition of cultivated land protection, including spatial optimization, management innovation, and safeguard systems. Safeguard systems serve as the base of the institutional transition and provide the manpower and material resources from the three dimensions (laws and regulations, organizational mechanisms, and monitoring technology).
4.4. Management innovation in facility agricultural land Due to its benefits, including off-season growing, highly intensive, fully automated control, and water and fertilizer savings, facility agriculture can effectively enhance agricultural income (Gao et al., 2009; Liu and Zhang, 2014; Yao, 2009). However, in some facility agriculture systems, hardening construction was adopted, which destroyed the
Fig. 9. Tender and bid procedures for cultivated land leasing.
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Fig. 10. Remote sensing image and actual field photograph of facility agricultural land with a tillage layer.
Since 2014, although the area of cultivated land is decreasing orderly, the added value of primary industry has been increasing rapidly with the improvement of utilization level, which means the output per unit area of cultivated land is rising continuously. In the future, with the increase in cultivated land income, the effects of the institutional transition of cultivated land protection via "promoting protection by utilization" will become more obvious.
Spatial optimization and management innovation are the content and path of the transition, which increase the incomes of cultivated land from different perspectives to support the goal of "promoting protection by utilization”: 1 Spatial optimization promotes income improvement from the perspective of the site conditions. Large-scale production conditions are created through the basic farmland reformation projects intended to achieve a centralized and contiguous cultivated land area. Additionally, cultivated land with good sites is included in the core area to be subjected to the most stringent cultivated land control through the spatial use control and zoning of cultivated land. Conversely, land with inferior sites is included in the buffer zone, which can be further converted into forest land, green land, or grassland in parks according to local conditions, thereby reducing the pressure of utilization and protection. 2 Tendering and bidding in cultivated land leasing promotes income improvement from the perspective of management entities. Through the market allocation of cultivated land resources, modern agricultural enterprises with economic and technical strength are chosen as the main entities for cultivated land utilization. 3 Management innovation of facility agricultural land promotes income improvement from the perspective of the utilization means. Through the implementation of differential management styles between hardening and non-hardening facility agriculture, the development and construction of facility agriculture is encouraged under the premise that the cultivation layer will not be destroyed.
5.1.2. Re-recognition of the significance of cultivated land protection in the high-density megacity From an ecological perspective, cultivated land is one of the basic units of the ecological function network and ecological security pattern of the urban landscape and thus has an important ecological service function in regulating the urban climate, rainfall, and runoff and updating soil fertility. In terms of the cultural significance, Shenzhen relies on cultivated land to construct high-tech agricultural parks, facility agricultural projects, and agricultural manors. They provide the public with places of science popularization in agricultural culture and ecotourism and thus have an important function in cultural heritage. From a technological perspective, Shenzhen takes cultivated land as a strategic project to promote agricultural modernization and to strengthen the agricultural base and as an R&D carrier for the modern biological breeding industry. In terms of the social significance, cultivated land, which is an important vegetable and fruit cultivation base in the suburbs of the city, produces pollution-free local vegetables for the Shenzhen residents. Thus cultivated land plays an irreplaceable role in stabilizing prices and constructing the "vegetable basket project", thereby playing a positive role in social security.
Shenzhen’s institutional transition of cultivated land protection has demonstrated the following initial successes:
5.1.3. Regulation, assessment, and reward and punishment systems during and after the transition need to be established to address the hidden danger in transition management During the implementation process of institutional transition, great attention must be paid to the cheating problems of false advertising by "selling horse meat as beefsteak" to avoid some enterprises that would seek their own private interests under the guise of carrying out the institutional transition policies of cultivated land protection. Through the monitoring technology in the safeguard system, some serious problem have been found. For instance, during the spatial optimization process, some government departments may ‘take up the superior land but compensate with the inferior’ during the basic farmland reformation project and/or ‘rate shoddy land as good quality’ during the spatial use control and zoning, thereby encroaching on high quality farmland resources to give way to the government’s vanity projects. When this problem is found, some high-quality arable land has been occupied by the government’s project which have been irrevocable. Another problem is that during the cultivated land leasing process, some enterprises may hold the banner of modern agriculture and yet aggressively develop farmhouse dining and other tourism service industries. Some enterprises in pursuit of higher economic benefits may even take
1 The cultivated land acreage remains rather stable. The vast area of cultivated land within the core zone has been included in the highstandard farmland construction area and the basic farmland protection area; the future goal is to achieve permanent protection of cultivated land within the core zone. 2 The quality of cultivated land has been greatly improved. During the implementation of the institution, 30,000 mu of high-standard farmland were completed. Land leveling, irrigation facilities, field roads, farmland productivity and other aspects have been greatly improved. 3 The spatial layout has been significantly improved. Within the whole city, core zones, including the northern Guangming area, Bao’an-Tongtou area, and Pingshan-Longtian area, have been formed to render a large-area, contiguous, and high-quality farming area. 4 The level of cultivated land use has been increasing yearly. The number of cultivated land leasing enterprises has increased annually, as has the actual utilization level of the cultivated land. It is the inflection point of the added value of the first industry in 2014. 500
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Design of programs using transferable development rights to preserve farmland in the northeast. Can. Public Adm. 5, 133–155. Mingcai, P., 2002. Experience and enlightenment of land reclamation and consolidation in Germany. Land Resour. 50–51 (in Chinese). Nelson, A.C., 1992. Preserving prime farmland in the face of urbanization: lessons from Oregon. J. Am. Plan. Assoc. 58, 467–488. Peterson, C.A., McCarthy, C., 1976. Farmland preservation by purchase of development rights: the long island experiment. DePaul Law Rev. 26, 447. Pierce, J.T., Furuseth, O.J., 1982. Farmland protection planning in British Columbia. GeoJournal 6, 555–560. Reenberg, Anette, 2001. Agricultural land use pattern dynamics in the Sudan–Sahel: towards an event-driven framework. Land Use Policy 18, 309–319. Rong, L., Guanyin, D., 2004. Enlightenment of land consolidation in Netherlands on land consolidation and development in China. China’s Land Resour. Econ. 17 (26–28), 48 (in Chinese). Rose, J.G., 1984. Farmland preservation policy and programs. Nat. Resour. J. 24, 591. Steiner, F.R., 1980. Farmland protection in the Netherlands. J. Soil Water Conserv. 27, 248–249. Sun, Q., Cai, Y.L., 2008. Historical experiences of cropland conservation and land management in Japan. Acta Sci. Nat. Univ. Pekinensis 44, 249–256 (in Chinese). Tan, M.H., Li, X.B., Xie, H., Lu, C.H., 2005. Urban land expansion and arable land loss in China—a case study of Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei region. Land Use Policy 22, 187–196. Wang, X.L., Fu, J.B., Chen, L.D., Wang, C.Y., 2009. Thinking on urban agriculture in Shenzhen. Sme Manage. Technol. 45–46 (in Chinese). Ward, R.M., 1991. The US Farmland Protection Policy Act: another case of benign neglect. Land Use Policy 8, 63–68. Yao, S.G., 2009. Facilities agriculture in Israel. Constr. Old Revolutionary Area 278, 60–61 (in Chinese). Zeng, X.K., Li, G.C., Wang, Y.L., Xie, M.M., 2009. Hypothesis and validation on the Kuznets curves of cultivated land change and its human driving forces in rapidly urbanized area: a case study of Shenzhen City. Resour. Sci. 31, 604–611 (in Chinese). Zheng, H.M., 2005. Analysis of rural urbanization in Shenzhen: the role transition of peasants, quasi citizens and citizens. Special Zone Econ. 145–146 (in Chinese).
5.2. Conclusions The core challenge of cultivated land protection is the contradiction between economic growth and cultivated land protection. Although China conducts the most stringent system of cultivated land protection, the restraint mechanism of rigid control with pure administration cannot solve the problem that agricultural income is far lower than nonagricultural income. As a result, the continuous decreasing trend in the area and quality of cultivated land has not changed, and the problem of the abandonment of cultivated land has not been solved. Cultivated land protection in Shenzhen has a difficulty level ranked among the forefront in China and worldwide. As the city with the fastest economic growth rate in China, Shenzhen has most serious contradiction between economic growth and cultivated land protection. In Shenzhen, urbanization has been fully realized, in that all of the peasants have turned into an urban population and all of the rural land has become state-owned; therefore, cultivated land is no longer the means of production for peasants to survive. These backgrounds have determined that the cultivated land protection problem in Shenzhen has an intensified difficulty, and the solution of this problem in Shenzhen can provide a positive reference both in China and globally. Shenzhen has achieved initial success in exploring the institutional transition of and the implementation path to cultivated land protection, which is "promoting protection by utilization" through funds, technologies, and policies to enhance the benefits of cultivated land. However, compared to developed countries/regions, there is still much room for improvement in the institutional system, management level, and scientific technological content. For instance, based on experiences from the Netherlands and Japan, an effective supervision and management mechanism should be established, and the entire public notice and public participation system process should be implemented to avoid corruption in the basic farmland reformation project. Based on lessons from Germany, ecological protection and landscape construction should receive attention, in which reformation projects adapting to the natural ecological environment to prevent landscape destruction are emphasized. Overall, by learning and borrowing advanced international experience and technologies, the income level of cultivated land can be continually improved, and the effect of "promoting protection by utilization" can be strengthened. Furthermore, during the transition process, potential risks must be seriously noted, including some government departments, which may “take up the superior land but compensate with the inferior, and rate shoddy land as good quality”, and some enterprises, which may engage in non-agricultural business activities; the regulation, assessment. Finally, the reward and punishment systems during and after the transition must be improved. Acknowledgements This research was under the financial aid of the Open Fund of Key Laboratory of Urban Land Resources Monitoring and Simulation, Ministry of Land and Resources, China (NO: KF-2015-01-045). We would like to express appreciations to colleagues in the laboratory for their constructive suggestions and comments. Also, we thank the anonymous reviewers and members of the editorial team for their constructive comments and contributions.
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Land Use Policy journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/landusepol
Institutional transition and implementation path for cultivated land protection in highly urbanized regions: A case study of Shenzhen, China
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Mo Sua, Renzhong Guoa,b, , Wuyang Honga a b
School of Resource and Environment Science, Wuhan University, Wuhan, 430079, China Research Institute for Smart Cities, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen, 518060, China
A R T I C LE I N FO
A B S T R A C T
Keywords: Cultivated land Land management Institutional transition Spatial optimization Shenzhen City
Cultivated land is a key resource and environmental factor for human survival and development, and internationally, special protection is generally imposed on cultivated land. China conducts the most stringent cultivated land protection system worldwide, but the restraint mechanism of rigid control with pure administration cannot change the continuous decreasing trend in the acreage and quality of cultivated land. Shenzhen, which is the city with the fastest economic growth in China and a highly urbanized area with a non-agricultural population, has very serious issues regarding cultivated land encroachment, spatially fragmented distribution, and land abandonment, which has rendered cultivated land protection extremely difficult. In this article, the present cultivated land protection situation in China and other countries is summarized, and the acreage change, spatial distribution, and land abandonment of cultivated land in Shenzhen are summarized and analyzed. Then, we propose an institutional framework for the transition of cultivated land protection in Shenzhen, which includes spatial optimization, management innovation, and safeguard systems. The implementation path to the transition of cultivated land protection includes a basic farmland reformation project, spatial usage control and zoning of cultivated land, tender and bid management for cultivated land leasing, and management innovation for facility agricultural land. The pros and cons of how non-agricultural populations impact cultivated land protection and the compound benefits, including the political, ecological, cultural, and technical aspects, of cultivated land protection in highly urbanized areas are discussed. This article notes the potential risks in management innovation in facility agricultural land. The proposed institutional framework for the transition of cultivated land protection and its implementation paths provide a reference for cultivated land protection and utilization in highly urbanized areas and suburbs with a heavy contradiction between economic growth and cultivated land protection in developing countries.
1. Introduction Cultivated land is a key resource and environmental factor for human survival and development. Cultivated land has multiple functions that include production, spatial bearing, and environmental protection and is a highly coupled social-economic-ecological compound system. For a long time, the huge population and excessive expansion of urban and rural construction land has caused huge demand pressures on the limited cultivated land resources, a heavy contradiction between economic development and cultivated land resource protection, a costly reduction of cultivated land resources, marginalization of cultivated land, and the persistent existence of cultivated land ecosystem degradation (King and Killingbeck, 1990; Nelson, 1992; Reenberg and Anette, 2001). These facts have driven academia to re-examine the
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management mode of cultivated land resources and promote the transition of cultivated land protection toward spatial optimization, management innovation, and safeguard implementation. Cultivated land protection stems from the extremely fast loss of high-quality farmland and the degradation of the land productivity capacity during the process of urban expansion. Globally, agricultural land protection generally has been implemented in a special manner through governmental intervention (Goodenough and Richard, 1992; Gorton and Matthew, 2001; Jacobs, 1997; Steiner, 1980; Sun and Cai, 2008). The intervention mainly includes the enforcement protection of agricultural protected areas through planning means, mandatory agricultural land protection policies through legal means, and development rights that can be traded in agricultural land through market means. The means of planning refers to the provision that agricultural land in
Corresponding author at: School of Resource and Environment Science, Wuhan University, Wuhan, 430079, China. E-mail address: [email protected] (R. Guo).
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2018.11.015 Received 6 August 2017; Received in revised form 10 November 2018; Accepted 10 November 2018 0264-8377/ © 2018 Published by Elsevier Ltd.
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Fig. 1. Cultivated land zoning in Shenzhen, China.
land protection policies, and cultivated land value. However, researches on the transition of cultivated land protection are still in the “interpretation-description” stage. Overall, China has formed a national compulsory executed institutional system that takes the system of land use control, the dynamic balance of total cultivated land, and the management and assessment policies for cultivated land as the core, the laws "Constitution", "Land Management Law", and "Agriculture Law" as the base, various policies and local regulations as the support. The institutional system is widely used in all parts of China. However, the restraint mechanism with purely administrative rigidity did not change the continuous decreasing trend of cultivated land in both quantity and quality, and the strict cultivated land protection system did not achieve the desired effect. In 2012, “General Plan of Land Management System Reform in Shenzhen” was approved by the former Ministry of Land and Resources of the People's Republic of China and the People's Government of Guangdong Province. Shenzhen took this as an opportunity to optimize innovatively the system of land use protection. For Shenzhen, the present status of "a huge population on very scarce land" has exacerbated the contradiction between "food and construction". Given the low acreage, inadequate quality, and fragmented spatial distribution of cultivated land, determining how to summarize and self-examine the costly loss of cultivated land brought by the high degree of urbanization and how to construct a highly efficient and scientifically cultivated land protection system are issues with great research and practical values to crack the problem of cultivated land and to alleviate the contradiction between urbanization and cultivated land protection. Therefore, in this article, we present the present situation and problems of cultivated land in highly urbanized areas, analyze the variation patterns and evolution trends of cultivated land, construct an institutional framework for the transition of cultivated land protection with spatial optimization, management innovation, and safeguard systems as the main content, and propose an implementation path to achieve this institutional transition. This study aims to provide references for the transition of cultivated land protection, the transition of land use, and the management of cultivated land.
the enforcement agricultural area cannot be used for non-agricultural purposes by delimiting urban development boundaries, urban construction areas, and agricultural areas (Pierce and Furuseth, 1982). The use of national mandatory forces is one of the simplest and most direct means of cultivated land protection (Juergensmeyer, 1981; Rose, 1984; Ward, 1991). According to the degree of economic development, cultural and educational levels, historical background, resource endowment, and legal system environment, different countries have established different legal systems for cultivated land protection. The most common market means is the land development rights transfer system implemented by the United States and European countries (Mabbszeno, 1981; Peterson and McCarthy, 1976). For instance, Barrows et al. discussed the issues in establishing and administering a transfer of development rights program, and Dorfman et al. focused on the potential for a market for farmland preservation (Barrows and Prenguber, 1977; Dorfman et al., 2009). The use of public money to purchase development rights for privately held land has become increasingly popular in recent years as a method to preserve agricultural land (Cai, 2001; Daniels, 1991; Du and Yuan, 2013, 2015; Jiang et al., 2011; Li, 2011; Lichtenberg and Ding, 2008; Liu et al., 2005; Tan et al., 2005). Another way to protect cultivated land is land consolidation and reclamation, which make use of engineering means to ameliorate land production conditions, increase cultivated land and improve agricultural quality. Japan, Germany, Finland and other countries attach great importance to land consolidation and reclamation and have established relatively mature and scientific institutions. They pay attention to the protection of land landscape and ecology, emphasize public participation, strengthen process supervision and management, establish a diversified funding channel, and ensure the quantity and quality of land consolidation and reclamation tasks through government intervention (Futian, 2007; Huijiao, 2009; Mingcai, 2002; Rong and Guanyin, 2004; Sun and Cai, 2008). Cultivated land protection is China's basic national policy and is an overall and strategic issue that relates to the development of economic and social sustainability. Up to now, there are already a lot of in-depth studies on changes in cultivated land and its mechanism, cultivated 494
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and less than 1000 m2 was 9%, accounting for only 2% of the total acreage. The proportion of cultivated land patches with acreage larger than 1000 m2 and less than 2000 square meters was 19%, accounting for only 5% of the total area (Fig. 4). The over-broken cultivated land pattern suggested that the majority of the cultivated land patches did not have the conditions for large-scale production.
2. Present cultivated land protection situation Shenzhen is the fastest growing city in China. From a population of less than 30,000 in the city in 1979, Shenzhen has become a megacity with a population of more than 10 million in 2010. The rapid urbanization has placed great pressure on cultivated land protection. In 2004, Shenzhen fully realized urbanization, with all of the peasants becoming an urban population and all rural land becoming state-owned. Cultivated land is no longer the means of production for the survival of the peasants, which further increases the difficulty level of cultivated land protection (Hu, 2009; Liu and Liu, 2011; Zheng, 2005). In 2016, the acreage of cultivated land in Shenzhen was 38.43 km2, The cultivated land zoning in Shenzhen are demonstrated in Fig. 1.
2.3. Serious problem with cultivated land abandonment In 2014, 40% of the cultivated land outside the scope of the basic farmland reformation project in Shenzhen was not used for cultivation. Some of the land had become forest land, grassland, and bare land, thereby leading to a quite serious land abandonment problem (Fig. 5). China implements the most stringent cultivated land protection system worldwide, which has effectively curbed the problem in which cultivated land is occupied by construction land. However, because agricultural income is still far lower than non-agricultural income, agricultural practitioners have chosen to take secondary and tertiary industry jobs in urban areas. As a result, a large amount of cultivated land was subjected to non-farming uses, which led to land abandonment over a long time frame. Land abandonment is the inevitable outcome when the lower agricultural income cannot compete with the higher income from non-agricultural development.
2.1. Sharp decline in the cultivated land area Relevant research has shown that the rapid decline in cultivated land is the normal outcome of economic growth, with the primary cause being the contradiction between economic development and cultivated land protection (Cai and Zhang, 2006; Huang, 1999; Lu et al., 1998; Zeng et al., 2009). The change process of cultivated land in Shenzhen can be divided into two stages。The first stage is from 1979 to 2008. Due to the lack of cultivated land protection system, the protection of cultivated land is out of control, and the area of cultivated land is sharply reduced. In 1979, the cultivated land in Shenzhen was 354.91 square kilometers (km2); in 2008, it decreased to 38.16 km2, with average annual decrease of 10.92 km2; The second stage is 2009 so far. With the gradual establishment of cultivated land protection system, the situation of rapid reduction of cultivated land has been completely terminated. The average annual cultivated land reduction area is controlled within 1 km2. Especially in 2013, due to the implementation of the basic cultivated land transformation project in Shenzhen, the cultivated land grew by 10.77 km2, the first increase in cultivated land since Shenzhen's history (Fig. 2).According to the statistics bulletin of Shenzhen’s national economic and social development from 2009 to 2016, the value added of first industry exhibited the first positive growth in 2014, and its annual growth rate from 2014 to 2016 began to increase yearly (Fig. 3).
3. Institutional framework for the transition of cultivated land protection In 2008, Shenzhen strictly followed the national requirements and established the cultivated land protection system, but the area of cultivated land continued to decline annually and the issue of land abandonment was not effectively addressed. In this context, Shenzhen explored the institutional transition of a cultivated land protection system and proposed the guiding concept of "promoting protection by utilization", which improved the income of cultivated land through multiple means, including capital, technology, and policy. The framework included three aspects: spatial optimization, management innovation, and safeguard systems. 3.1. Spatial optimization Spatial optimization refers to the means of adjusting the spatial distribution and layout of cultivated land through cultivated land survey, planning preparation, and plan implementation, in which engineering technologies are used to manually change the natural environment of the land. The major steps were as follows:
2.2. Fragmentation of the spatial distribution of cultivated land In addition to the reduction in the area of cultivated land, another outcome from the rapid expansion of the city is a substantial decline in the cultivated land quality. Cultivated land is cut off by urban land, resulting in a spatially fragmented area that is difficult to protect, develop, and utilize. In 2012, the proportion of figure spots of cultivated land with acreage less than 667 square meters (m2) in Shenzhen was 24%, accounting for only 1% of the total acreage of cultivated land. The proportion of cultivated land patches with acreage larger than 667 m2
1 To conduct a special survey of cultivated land, specifically the reserve resources of cultivated land, and to determine the quantity and quality of the cultivated land as well as the spatial distribution of the reserve sources that could be transformed to cultivated land.
Fig. 2. Changes in cultivated land acreage in Shenzhen, China, from 2009 to 2016. 495
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Fig. 3. The value-added of first industry of Shenzhen, China, from 2009 to 2016.
Fig. 4. Sketch map of the distribution of spatially fragmented spots of cultivated land in Shenzhen, China.
3.2. Management innovation
2 To perform cultivated land consolidation and supplementary planning for land development and reclamation, in which the centralized zones of the reserve resource of cultivated land were identified, the spatial range of land development and reclamation were delineated, and the total investment was calculated and predicted. 3 To implement the basic farmland reformation project. According to the cultivated land consolidation and supplementary planning for land development and reclamation, government investment was used to perform land leveling, soil improvement, and agricultural infrastructure construction, thereby forming centralized and contiguous high-quality cultivated land zones with a complete and sound infrastructure. 4 To control the spatial use of cultivated land. Centralized and contiguous high-quality cultivated land zones with a complete and sound infrastructure and the scattered and fragmented inadequate quality cultivated land zones that were difficult to utilize were identified, and core zones and buffer zones were categorized; differential measures of spatial use control were performed accordingly.
The management innovation of cultivated land policies in Shenzhen included the following: 1 Innovation of tendering and bidding in cultivated land leasing. In Shenzhen, modern high-tech agricultural enterprises were preferably selected using market tendering and bidding to achieve optimization of agricultural resources through the implementation of compensated land use. 2 Innovation of management systems of facility agricultural land. In Shenzhen, modern agricultural enterprises were encouraged to develop and construct facility agriculture. Through this process, threedimensional cultivations were achieved, thereby reducing the human power input and promoting the agricultural output value. Automated control of temperature and irrigation was also realized, which reduced production costs. Additionally, initial processing and packaging of agricultural products were achieved, which increased agricultural income (Wang et al., 2009). 496
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Fig. 5. Sketch map of the distribution of the actual utilization types of cultivated land in Shenzhen, China.
monitoring network mainly composed of those responsible for land protection and law enforcement inspectors was established to conduct periodic and regulatory inspections. According to the requirements of the regulations and policies, Shenzhen conducted remote sensing monitoring, land change surveys, and quality change monitoring for cultivated land. The annual cultivated land encroachment and the corresponding qualities were checked, and special surveys of cultivated land were conducted on a regular basis to check the actual utilization of the cultivated land. Since 2016, spatial dynamics monitoring of cultivated land has been conducted to determine the quarterly changes in cultivated land in terms of the following technique routine. Cultivated land is regularly shot using UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) and satellites, and the change of cultivated land is rapidly detected between two consecutive time phase images. Combined with field investigation and data analysis, illegal construction, abandonment and other irregularities could then be positioned accurately, which will be dealt with by the government law enforcement department in-time (Fig. 6).
3.3. Safeguard systems The safeguard systems for the transition of cultivated land protection included the following three aspects: legal basis, organizational mechanism, and monitoring system. 1 Legal basis. Since 2007, the Shenzhen Municipal Government has promulgated multiple regulatory documents, including "Implementation path of basic farmland construction and reformation in Shenzhen" (Shenzhen Government Office [2010] No. 99), "Tendering and bidding management in land leasing within the basic farmland protection zone in Shenzhen" (Shenzhen agricultural economic and trade information [2015] No. 248), and "Notice on the standardization of allocating basic farmland-serviced facility agricultural land– from the City Planning and Land Resources Commission and the City Economic and Trade Information Commission" (Shenzhen Land Planning Committee (2015) No. 345). These documents were used as policy support for the spatial optimization and management innovation. 2 Organizational mechanism. In 2007, the Shenzhen Municipal Government issued “Opinions on Strengthening the Protection of Cultivated Land and Basic Agricultural Land (Shenzhen Government Office [2007] No. 267). Accordingly, the Shenzhen Municipal Government established a leading group to take charge of cultivated land and provide basic farmland protection in Shenzhen, with the vice-mayor serving as the group leader and the city’s authorities, including Supervision, Planning, Land, Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, and government officials from all of the districts serving as members. Additionally, the cultivated land protection office was established in the Shenzhen City Land Resources & Real Estate Management Bureau to serve as the specialized agency for land planning and cultivated land protection. 3 Monitoring technology. "Opinions on Strengthening the Protection of Cultivated Land and Basic Farmland" also required periodic inspection of cultivated land protection through a survey of the land use status and monitoring using satellite remote sensing. A
4. Implementation paths for the transition of cultivated land protection 4.1. Basic farmland reformation project Since 2008, the Shenzhen Municipal Government has increased efforts to protect cultivated land and the capital investment and has conducted a 5-year basic farmland renovation project (the basic farmland reformation project is the special name used by Shenzhen City, whereas the common names are the land development, reclamation, and consolidation project or the land remediation project). The main contents of the basic farmland reformation project include the following: 1 "Special planning of cultivated land consolidation and supplementary planning for land development and reclamation in Shenzhen (2009–2020)" was composed. The achievements of this plan were 497
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Fig. 6. Institutional framework for the transition of cultivated land protection.
implementation into consideration; the technical procedure is shown in Fig. 5. The quality ratings for the cultivated land and the level of infrastructure facilities were evaluated first, and land with high-ranking quality and sound infrastructure was included in the core zone. The remaining land was categorized according to the analysis of the actual farming status and spatial layout, in which land that was abandoned, not used for farming due to construction purposes, and spatially scattered and fragmented was included as the buffer zone. Furthermore, of the remainder of the land, the land planned for use for construction or as a reservoir based on the analysis of the utilization of city planning and land planning was grouped into the buffer zone; all remaining land was included into the core zone (Fig. 7). Spatially, the core zone of the cultivated land was approximately 30 km2, which was higher than the 26.87 km2 planning acreage of cultivated land determined in “the overall planning of land use in Shenzhen (2016–2020)”. In this core zone, the most stringent cultivated land control was implemented, and land was leased to modern agricultural enterprises to ensure use efficiency, with a principle that land use should not be changed. The buffer zone was approximately 11 km2;
used for the registration of Shenzhen’s cultivated land reserve resources, which in turn were used to delineate 27 spatial ranges for land development and reclamation (basic farmland reformation zones). 2 “Implementation paths to basic farmland construction and reformation in Shenzhen" was drafted, which specified the missions and objectives, working procedure, engineering standards, sources of funds, organizational division of labor, and engineering acceptance of the reconstruction project. 3 The basic farmland reformation project was conducted. From 2008 to 2013, Shenzhen completed basic farmland reformation for 32,000 mu of land. Shenzhen also established a joint meeting system of basic farmland construction and reformation, and within those 5 years Shenzhen held 25 municipal government executive and office meetings to coordinate the work. The cumulative investment funds reached 1.612 billion RMB. After the reformation project, the distribution of cultivated land in Shenzhen City was highly centralized, creating the conditions for a mass agricultural operation. 4 Synchronously completing the task of high-standard farmland construction during the "13th Five-Year" period in Shenzhen. The reformation of basic farmland in Shenzhen has the characteristics of high capital investment and high standard of infrastructure construction. Construction standards such as land leveling, irrigation facilities, field roads and farmland fertility have reached or even exceeded Standard of Modern Standard Farmland Construction in Guangdong (Trial Version). Under such circumstances, the Shenzhen municipal government decided to combine the high-standard farmland construction with the basic farmland reformation project. The project has completed the planned task of building 30,000 mu of high-standard farmland.
4.2. Spatial usage control and zoning of cultivated land The entire cultivated land area in Shenzhen was divided into the core zone and the buffer zone. The rules used to divide the zones mainly took the quality ratings of the cultivated land, infrastructure construction level, actual utilization, spatial layout, and planning and
Fig. 7. Technical procedure of spatial optimization for cultivated land. 498
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Fig. 8. Outcome of spatial layout optimization for cultivated land.
tillage layer and affected the food security to a certain extent. China's facility agricultural management was in a period of contradiction, wherein the national agricultural authorities aggressively promoted the construction of facility agriculture, but the land and resource authorities strictly controlled the scale and location. Thoughts on implementing differentiated management of facility agriculture in Shenzhen were as follows: strict land use control was used in hardening facility agriculture to strictly control the construction scale and location and to ensure the productive capacity of the cultivated land, whereas cultivated land leasing enterprises were encouraged to set up film greenhouses with bamboo, wood, and steel frame structures above the tillage layer (Fig. 10). No control conditions are set on this kind of facility agriculture.
in this area, non-agricultural construction activities were controlled, and land could be reformed to woodland, park green land, or grassland with better ecological benefits according to the local conditions (Fig. 8). 4.3. Tender and bid management in cultivated land leasing All land is state-owned in Shenzhen, and the government can decide the users of cultivated land. Because traditional agricultural production generates low income and thus is not able to achieve the goal of "promoting protection by utilization", modern agriculture, science and technology agriculture, and facility agriculture are the methods used for the management of cultivated land in Shenzhen. In this context, the main responsibilities of the government were to achieve the optimized allocation of cultivated land resources and to ensure that the highquality cultivated land resources were under the management of excellent agricultural enterprises. Shenzhen gave full play to the role of the market in the resource allocation optimization process and was the first region in China to explore the market tendering and bidding mechanism in cultivated land leasing. The detailed procedures are shown in Fig. 9.
5. Discussion and conclusions 5.1. Discussion 5.1.1. Effectiveness of institutional transition safeguarded by the new concept “promoting protection by utilization” The core of institutional transition is to replace the traditional unilateral "rigid control" with the new concept of "promoting protection by utilization". Shenzhen constructed the institutional framework for the transition of cultivated land protection, including spatial optimization, management innovation, and safeguard systems. Safeguard systems serve as the base of the institutional transition and provide the manpower and material resources from the three dimensions (laws and regulations, organizational mechanisms, and monitoring technology).
4.4. Management innovation in facility agricultural land Due to its benefits, including off-season growing, highly intensive, fully automated control, and water and fertilizer savings, facility agriculture can effectively enhance agricultural income (Gao et al., 2009; Liu and Zhang, 2014; Yao, 2009). However, in some facility agriculture systems, hardening construction was adopted, which destroyed the
Fig. 9. Tender and bid procedures for cultivated land leasing.
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Fig. 10. Remote sensing image and actual field photograph of facility agricultural land with a tillage layer.
Since 2014, although the area of cultivated land is decreasing orderly, the added value of primary industry has been increasing rapidly with the improvement of utilization level, which means the output per unit area of cultivated land is rising continuously. In the future, with the increase in cultivated land income, the effects of the institutional transition of cultivated land protection via "promoting protection by utilization" will become more obvious.
Spatial optimization and management innovation are the content and path of the transition, which increase the incomes of cultivated land from different perspectives to support the goal of "promoting protection by utilization”: 1 Spatial optimization promotes income improvement from the perspective of the site conditions. Large-scale production conditions are created through the basic farmland reformation projects intended to achieve a centralized and contiguous cultivated land area. Additionally, cultivated land with good sites is included in the core area to be subjected to the most stringent cultivated land control through the spatial use control and zoning of cultivated land. Conversely, land with inferior sites is included in the buffer zone, which can be further converted into forest land, green land, or grassland in parks according to local conditions, thereby reducing the pressure of utilization and protection. 2 Tendering and bidding in cultivated land leasing promotes income improvement from the perspective of management entities. Through the market allocation of cultivated land resources, modern agricultural enterprises with economic and technical strength are chosen as the main entities for cultivated land utilization. 3 Management innovation of facility agricultural land promotes income improvement from the perspective of the utilization means. Through the implementation of differential management styles between hardening and non-hardening facility agriculture, the development and construction of facility agriculture is encouraged under the premise that the cultivation layer will not be destroyed.
5.1.2. Re-recognition of the significance of cultivated land protection in the high-density megacity From an ecological perspective, cultivated land is one of the basic units of the ecological function network and ecological security pattern of the urban landscape and thus has an important ecological service function in regulating the urban climate, rainfall, and runoff and updating soil fertility. In terms of the cultural significance, Shenzhen relies on cultivated land to construct high-tech agricultural parks, facility agricultural projects, and agricultural manors. They provide the public with places of science popularization in agricultural culture and ecotourism and thus have an important function in cultural heritage. From a technological perspective, Shenzhen takes cultivated land as a strategic project to promote agricultural modernization and to strengthen the agricultural base and as an R&D carrier for the modern biological breeding industry. In terms of the social significance, cultivated land, which is an important vegetable and fruit cultivation base in the suburbs of the city, produces pollution-free local vegetables for the Shenzhen residents. Thus cultivated land plays an irreplaceable role in stabilizing prices and constructing the "vegetable basket project", thereby playing a positive role in social security.
Shenzhen’s institutional transition of cultivated land protection has demonstrated the following initial successes:
5.1.3. Regulation, assessment, and reward and punishment systems during and after the transition need to be established to address the hidden danger in transition management During the implementation process of institutional transition, great attention must be paid to the cheating problems of false advertising by "selling horse meat as beefsteak" to avoid some enterprises that would seek their own private interests under the guise of carrying out the institutional transition policies of cultivated land protection. Through the monitoring technology in the safeguard system, some serious problem have been found. For instance, during the spatial optimization process, some government departments may ‘take up the superior land but compensate with the inferior’ during the basic farmland reformation project and/or ‘rate shoddy land as good quality’ during the spatial use control and zoning, thereby encroaching on high quality farmland resources to give way to the government’s vanity projects. When this problem is found, some high-quality arable land has been occupied by the government’s project which have been irrevocable. Another problem is that during the cultivated land leasing process, some enterprises may hold the banner of modern agriculture and yet aggressively develop farmhouse dining and other tourism service industries. Some enterprises in pursuit of higher economic benefits may even take
1 The cultivated land acreage remains rather stable. The vast area of cultivated land within the core zone has been included in the highstandard farmland construction area and the basic farmland protection area; the future goal is to achieve permanent protection of cultivated land within the core zone. 2 The quality of cultivated land has been greatly improved. During the implementation of the institution, 30,000 mu of high-standard farmland were completed. Land leveling, irrigation facilities, field roads, farmland productivity and other aspects have been greatly improved. 3 The spatial layout has been significantly improved. Within the whole city, core zones, including the northern Guangming area, Bao’an-Tongtou area, and Pingshan-Longtian area, have been formed to render a large-area, contiguous, and high-quality farming area. 4 The level of cultivated land use has been increasing yearly. The number of cultivated land leasing enterprises has increased annually, as has the actual utilization level of the cultivated land. It is the inflection point of the added value of the first industry in 2014. 500
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References
advantage of the facility agriculture policies to operate outdoor expansion or develop real estate inside the steel shed, thereby engaging in non-agricultural commercial activities. The steel shed blocks remote sensing images, and when the problem is discovered through manual inspection, the enterprise has been operating illegally for quite a long time. In the future, a complete set of regulation, assessment, and reward and punishment systems during and after the transition must be established to ensure the goal of "promoting protection by utilization” of cultivated land moves forward.
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5.2. Conclusions The core challenge of cultivated land protection is the contradiction between economic growth and cultivated land protection. Although China conducts the most stringent system of cultivated land protection, the restraint mechanism of rigid control with pure administration cannot solve the problem that agricultural income is far lower than nonagricultural income. As a result, the continuous decreasing trend in the area and quality of cultivated land has not changed, and the problem of the abandonment of cultivated land has not been solved. Cultivated land protection in Shenzhen has a difficulty level ranked among the forefront in China and worldwide. As the city with the fastest economic growth rate in China, Shenzhen has most serious contradiction between economic growth and cultivated land protection. In Shenzhen, urbanization has been fully realized, in that all of the peasants have turned into an urban population and all of the rural land has become state-owned; therefore, cultivated land is no longer the means of production for peasants to survive. These backgrounds have determined that the cultivated land protection problem in Shenzhen has an intensified difficulty, and the solution of this problem in Shenzhen can provide a positive reference both in China and globally. Shenzhen has achieved initial success in exploring the institutional transition of and the implementation path to cultivated land protection, which is "promoting protection by utilization" through funds, technologies, and policies to enhance the benefits of cultivated land. However, compared to developed countries/regions, there is still much room for improvement in the institutional system, management level, and scientific technological content. For instance, based on experiences from the Netherlands and Japan, an effective supervision and management mechanism should be established, and the entire public notice and public participation system process should be implemented to avoid corruption in the basic farmland reformation project. Based on lessons from Germany, ecological protection and landscape construction should receive attention, in which reformation projects adapting to the natural ecological environment to prevent landscape destruction are emphasized. Overall, by learning and borrowing advanced international experience and technologies, the income level of cultivated land can be continually improved, and the effect of "promoting protection by utilization" can be strengthened. Furthermore, during the transition process, potential risks must be seriously noted, including some government departments, which may “take up the superior land but compensate with the inferior, and rate shoddy land as good quality”, and some enterprises, which may engage in non-agricultural business activities; the regulation, assessment. Finally, the reward and punishment systems during and after the transition must be improved. Acknowledgements This research was under the financial aid of the Open Fund of Key Laboratory of Urban Land Resources Monitoring and Simulation, Ministry of Land and Resources, China (NO: KF-2015-01-045). We would like to express appreciations to colleagues in the laboratory for their constructive suggestions and comments. Also, we thank the anonymous reviewers and members of the editorial team for their constructive comments and contributions.
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