Characterizing the attitudes of the grain-planting farmers of Huaihe Basin, China

Yun-fei Hu, Fei You and Qi-you Luo

Food Policy, 2018, vol. 79, issue C, 224-234

Abstract: At the end of 2015, the Chinese government enacted the “supply-side structural reform”. The fundamental purpose of this reform is to implement people-centered development and to improve the level of social productivity. As different types of farmers have different needs in terms of management incentives, it is necessary to evaluate the attitudes of Chinese farmers in the period of agricultural supply-side structural reform. In this study we used the Q-methodology to divide 26 grain-planting farmers in the Huaihe Basin into three types, positive development farmer (PD), negative development farmer (ND) and family support farmer (FS), based on their attitudes towards policy, land, livelihood and planting plan. We found that: (1) Policy: FS-type evaluated the direct subsidy policy most highly. In contrast, ND-type had the most negative attitudes toward food-related policies. (2) Land: PD-type, which are representative of the new generation of grain farmers, had the highest dependence on the land, and land resources are likely to become their most scarce resource. (3) Livelihood: ND-type had the highest responsiveness to livelihoods, and they were most inclined to co-op. (4) Planting plan: FS-type were the most likely to replace food crops with cash crops. PD-type’s planting plan is limited by the sales capacity, and ND-type’s planting plan is most affected by technology. According to the characteristics of Chinese farmers, expanding the classification of different aspects is not only the development of the Q classification in the study of farmers, but also a new perspective to study the individual differences of Chinese farmers under the background of supply-side structural reform.

Keywords: Q-methodology; Chinese grain planting farmers; Attitude; Policy; Land; Livelihoods (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jfpoli:v:79:y:2018:i:c:p:224-234

DOI: 10.1016/j.foodpol.2018.07.007

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