labor location and agricultural land use in jilin, china

74

Volume 52, Number 1, February 2000

Labor Location and Agricultural Land Use in Jilin, China*

Lee Liu

Southwestern Oklahoma State University

Conventional agricultural land-use theory overlooks labor location and its effects on land use. This paper argues thatin labor-intensive commercial agriculture where labor concentrates in large labor centers (villages), the distance fromthe labor center is more important than the distance from market in determining land use and land rent and is impor-tant at both the microscale and larger scales. Both qualitative observations and quantitative field level land-use re-search in Jilin, China, support this approach. A new model is developed to incorporate labor location into the conven-tional land-use model. It regards agriculture as an industry using localized gross inputs.

Key Words: location theory,von Thünen, labor, market, land rent, land-use intensity, China.

* I wish to thank Changchun Institute of Geography, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and Baicheng City and Qianan County governments forresearch assistance, Stephen F. Austin State University (Texas) for funding part of the 1997 field research in China, Clarissa Kimber for herencouragement and help in the initial research and comments on an earlier version, and three anonymous reviewers for valuable comments on themanuscript. Part of the paper was presented at the 28th Congress of the International Geographic Union, The Hague, Holland, 1996, and the 1997meeting of the Association of American Geographers, Fort Worth, Texas.

Professional Geographer, 52(1) 2000, pages 74–83 © Copyright 2000 by Association of American Geographers.Initial submission, June 1998; revised submission, October 1998; final acceptance, January 1999.

Published by Blackwell Publishers, 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, and 108 Cowley Road, Oxford, OX4 1JF, UK.

,

Agricultural Land Use in Jilin, China

75

Review of Agricultural Land-use

Theory

gricultural land-use theory has been basedon the von Thünen model, the best known

geographic and economic theory of agricul-tural land use (Chisholm 1962; Hall 1966;Samuelson 1983; Kellerman 1989a; Jones1991; Grigg 1995). The von Thünen modelstates that the distance from market determinesland rent, which determines what combinationof crops a farmer should grow and with whatintensity, assuming uniform physical environ-ment, technology, and profit-maximizing farm-ers in a market economy (Hall 1966; Kellerman1989a; Grigg 1995).

Empirical tests support the von Thünen the-ory. At all levels in a market economy, marketdistance was repeatedly reported as the deter-minant of land use and land rent (e.g., Chisholm1962; Griffith 1973; Grigg 1995). At the micro-scale in subsistence agriculture, distance fromvillage is found to be the determinant of landuse because farmers have to overcome distanceto fields (e.g. Chisholm 1962; Blaikie 1971a,1971b). Consequently, more labor-intensivemethods of cultivation will be employed closerto village (Stryker 1976). This pattern of culti-vation has been widely observed throughoutthe world by other researchers (e.g., Jones1996, Lindblade et al. 1998).

Distance from village also affects land use incontemporary agriculture. De Lisle (1978,1982) studied land use in commerciallyoriented, highly mechanized, innovative, andkeenly competitive agriculture in Manitoba,Canada, and found that distance internal to thefarm affects agricultural land use. De Lisle(1982) reported that root crops, which producethe highest economic rent, are grown near thefarmstead, while grains and oil seeds are grownmore intensively in near fields and less inten-sively in remote fields.

Farm operators indicated that sugar beets werenot grown outside the limits of the infields be-cause they had to get onto the heavy land quicklyin the spring and then give the crop very closeattention during the growing period. It waspractical to provide the intensive care requiredby this crop only in close proximity to the farm-stead. (De Lisle 1982, 92)

Microscale models developed by Found(1970, 1971) and McCall (1985) show that,

subject to particular assumptions, land-use in-tensity, gross income, and net income decreasewith distance to the home and that optimumtypes of land use may change with distance tothe home. Stryker (1976) developed a theoreti-cal model of an agricultural economy in whichthe area farmed is constrained only by the timerequired to travel between the cultivated fieldsand the home.

The von Thünen theory is probably the geo-graphical concept most broadly applied to agri-cultural systems using all possible technologiesin all five continents (Kellerman 1989b), at themacroscale, mesoscale, and microscale (for ex-amples, see Chisholm 1962; Blaikie 1971a,1971b; Griffith 1973; Morgan 1973; Kellerman1983, 1989a, 1989b). It is considered by manyto be the cornerstone of location theory andeconomic theoretical thought (Hall 1966; Mor-gan 1973; Samuelson 1983; Kellerman 1989a;Golledge 1996; Wheeler and Muller 1998).However, the theory has also been criticized forits inadequacy (see Samuelson 1983; Kellerman1983, 1989a, 1989b). Scholars search for morecoherent and powerful theoretical/explanatorytools (Short 1996). Many attempt to incorpo-rate political economy approaches into agricul-tural geography (see Marsden et al. 1996).Meanwhile, researchers use the von Thünenapproach for developing new models and ideas(e.g. Dunn 1954; Jones et al. 1978; Samuelson1983; Jones and Krummel 1987; Jones 1991;Jones 1996; Hsu 1997; Hanink and Cromley1998; Krugman 1998; Liu 1999).

Incorporating Labor Location

into Land-use Research

As the above review shows, the geography andeconomics literature documents that the dis-tance from a market, be it a city, town, village,or farmstead, affects agricultural land use.However, research at the microscale excludestravel outside the farm or village perimeters,while research at the macroscale and mesoscaleexcludes intrafarm or intravillage travel. Forexample, Kellerman (1983) summarizes elevenland-use models, but none of them considersintrafarm travel. Traditional studies of land useat the farm level have also been preoccupiedwith whether the von Thünen model is appli-cable rather than giving full consideration tothe variables that might explain crop location

A

76


patterns (De Lisle 1982). In order to apply vonThünen’s model, these studies have to regardthe village or farm as the central market (e.g.,Jones 1996).

However, it is necessary to point out that cit-ies, towns, villages, and farmsteads are usuallylabor centers. The central market city in thevon Thünen Isolated State is also a labor cen-ter. Moreover, the Isolated State must includenumerous other labor centers (farm hamletsand villages), since it is hypothetically 370.9 ki-lometers (50 German miles or 230.5 Englishmiles) in radius (Morgan 1973). The standardfarm size in the Isolated State is assumed to be216.5 hectares (Morgan 1973), which is the sizeof a small village with about 100 households inJilin, China. The location of these other laborcenters should affect land use and should beconsidered as a land-use factor. Yet, existingtheory, including the von Thünen and latermodels, excludes labor centers and fails to ex-plain how distances from market and labor cen-ters interact to affect agricultural land use, orwhich of the two distances is the more impor-tant location factor.

Existing models of agricultural land use alsoassume perfect mobility of labor (Dunn 1954;Samuelson 1983; Jones 1991), which is not truein the real world. Based on experience in Jilin,China, this research relaxes the labor mobilityassumption to examine the spatial relationshipsamong market, labor centers, and land use inlocales where agriculture is labor-intensive andfarm labor is relatively immobile and concen-trates in large villages. It incorporates distancefrom the labor center into conventional agri-cultural land-use theory based on the vonThünen model.

A Case of Jilin, China

Qianan County, Jilin, China (Fig. 1), was usedas a case study area partly because it was whereI worked as a farmer in the 1970s and agricul-tural researcher in the 1980s. My friendshipand connections with the local farmers, villageleaders, and researchers enabled me to collectdata. Qianan is an agricultural county with aland area of 3,533 square kilometers, anda population of 276,293 in 1996 (QiananCounty Statistical Bureau [QCSB] 1997). Thecounty includes one central city that is the cen-tral market for farm products, two small market

towns, 15 townships, and 293 villages (QCSB1997). Main crops include corn, soybeans, sugarbeets, sunflowers, sorghum, and millet. Mainvegetable crops are cabbages, potatoes, turnips,garlic, carrots, cucumbers, watermelons, egg-plants, green onions, squash, and beans (QCSB1997). Agriculture is commercially orientedand farmers sell about 75% of their products tothe market (QCSB 1997).

I examined the spatial relationships amongmarket, labor centers, and land use in three re-search projects. Project One uses qualitativeobservations to examine the land-use patternbetween a labor center and market. ProjectTwo studies a transect to quantitatively exam-ine land rent changes along a 30 km route in-cluding eight settlements. Project Three col-lects countywide land-use data for multipleregression analysis to evaluate the relative im-portance of labor and market distances in pre-dicting land rent.

Project One

Labor centers are consumption centers or mar-kets of some significance. In subsistence agri-culture the village is both a labor center and amarket. In commercial agriculture, the villageis mainly a labor center instead of a market be-cause farmers sell most of their products tomarket away from the village. When a settle-ment is both a market and a labor center, effectsof labor location may have been mixed with ef-fects of market location and thus overlooked asan independent location force. After muchfieldwork in 1985 and 1986, I concluded thattwo railway stations in Qianan County weremarkets for farm products but were not farmlabor centers while two nearby villages werelabor centers but not market as they grewmainly cash crops for the market. This pro-vided a special situation where effects of laborand market locations could be investigated sep-arately and compared.

Based on the 1986 field inspections (Liu1986) and a 1993 re-inspection, Figure 2 illus-trates the land-use patterns in such a situation.Vegetables and sugar beets, the most pro-fitable, most bulky to transport and most per-ishable crops, are grown near the labor centerinstead of the market, because they are themost labor-intensive to grow. Sunflowers,though the least costly to transport, are foundin the outer most crop ring, part of which is


77

near the market, because they are the leastlabor-intensive to grow. No crops are grown onland near the market, because the land is re-mote from farm labor. Between the market andlabor center, land rent and land-use intensitydecreases toward the market, contrary to vonThünen’s prediction, but increases toward thelabor center (Fig. 2). It is reasonable to assumethat if the city in the von Thünen model werenot a labor center and nearby villages werelabor centers, agricultural land use between the

city and a village would have similar patterns asthat in Figure 2 and intensity would be highernear the labor center rather than the market.

Project Two

To further the research, I collected field levelland-use data for 1990, 1991, and 1992 along a30 km long and one km wide route includingeight settlements, the central market city andseven villages to its south (Fig. 1). Instead ofthe whole county, a transect was selected for

Figure 1: Study area: Qianan County, Jilin, China.

78


the field research mainly due to time and finan-cial limitations. Administered by the countygovernment, the eight settlements sell about75% of their products to the central market.

Village managers, accountants, and farmerswere interviewed and field inspections wereconducted to determine field distances to thelabor and market centers and field land rent,which was measured by net income followingJones (1996). Net income was determinedby averaging income per hectare at each half-km wide strip across all fields within the onekm zone. The collected data was plotted in Fig-ure 3.

The importance of labor location is evidentby the zigzag pattern of average rents in 1990–1992 (Fig. 3). The effect of market location ap-pears to be small, and most obvious on fieldsnearest the market. The market city in this caseis also a labor center and acts like other laborcenters (villages) to affect land use in fields towhich its labor travels to work. The resultsshow that labor location is important and needsto be considered not only at the village levelbut also at larger scales.

Project Three

Assisted by local farmers, officials, and re-searchers, I collected data for statistical analy-ses in a four-year project. In 1993, I selected330 family farms from 20 villages to participatein the project (Fig. 1). The participating fami-lies kept detailed records of their farm activitiesfrom 1994 to 1996. The multiple year data wasdesigned to enhance data reliability. In 1997, Iinterviewed the participants and collected theirrecords. Due to incomplete records, 23 of thefamilies were dropped. Thus my final data setincludes 1,801 fields in 307 families from the20 villages. To analyze effect of distances onland rent, the following data was collected foreach of the 1,801 fields: land rent (net incomeper hectare), labor distance, market distance,and per hectare applied organic manure andchemical fertilizer. Distances from labor andmarket were measured from the midpoint offields.

Descriptive statistics of the collected data areshown in Table 1. The matrix of zero-ordercorrelations among the variables shows that the

Figure 2: Land-use pattern between a labor center and market, Qianan County.


79

associations between the dependent variableand the independent variables are all in the ex-pected direction (Table 2). Land rent is nega-tively associated with labor and market dis-tances, but positively associated with organicmanure uses. Chemical fertilizer increases in-come; it is negatively associated with land rentbecause it is positively associated with laborand market distances. However, the matrix alsosuggests possible collinearity between some in-dependent variables. As this paper deals withlocation, collinearity between the two distancevariables is of concern.

The regression model resulted from stan-dard multiple regression of land rent on labordistance, market distance, manure use, andchemical fertilizer use. To deal with collinear-ity, a second regression was run without themarket distance variable. The two regressionshave similar results. Both models account forover 59% of the variation in land rents (Table 3).The regression shows that labor distance andmanure use contribute most to the predictionof land rent. The beta coefficients clearly indi-cate that labor distance is a stronger predictor

of land rent than market distance. The regres-sion results support my argument that labordistance is more important than market dis-tance in determining land use and should beincluded in land-use research.

Why is Labor Location Important?

Land-use patterns result from cultural as wellas economic processes. Three factors help ex-plain the importance of labor distance as a loca-tion factor. First, in the case of regions such asJilin, China, labor is concentrated in large vil-lages. Because these are large labor centers, theeffects of labor distance are greater and moreobvious compared with those in countrieswhere individual farms are the norm.

Second, most field crops are transported tothe village for preparation for sale or storagefor a later sale or consumption. In this case,market distance is the same for all the village’sfields, while labor distance is the variable thatinfluences land use. This situation may be sim-ilar to the non-negligible intrafarm transporta-tion costs for shipping crops to the plantation

Table 1

Descriptive Statistics of Land Rent, Distance, and Fertilizer Variables (n

�

1801)

Variable Minimum Maximum Mean Std. Dev.

Land rent (yuan/ha) 422 26125 8004 3178Labor distance (km) 0.25 4 1.102 0.481Market distance (km) 2.5 41.5 13.405 7.860Organic manure (yuan/ha) 0 2250 424 415

Chemical fertilizer (yuan/ha)

0

3333

1384

444

Figure 3: Relationship of land rent and distances from market and labor centers, Qianan County, 1990–1992.

80


for processing before shipping to the marketdescribed by Jones and Krummel (1987), thoughthey regard the plantation as a secondary mar-ket rather than a labor center.

Third, village-to-field transportation of farminputs (labor, materials including manure, oranimal or mechanic power) occurs almost dailythroughout the farming season, while the har-vest is transported to market only once a sea-son. On average, a farm family in Qianan spendsless than six days a year to transport their prod-ucts to market, after working in fields for fivemonths. Consequently, even if a crop is shippeddirectly from field to market, labor distance isstill a more important concern than market dis-tance. The farmers have to transport largequantities of manure from village to fields. Ma-nure is heavy and costly to transport. Conse-quently, the farmers usually put in more laborand manure to fields near the village, ratherthan remote fields near market.

Recent studies show that distance to villagealso affects land use in Tanzania ( Jones 1996),the Nigerian Sahel (Adams and Mortimore1997) and Rwanda (Clay et al. 1998). De Lisle(1978) reported that contract rent in Manitoba,Canada, was higher for fields near farms ($3.04per acre) than remote fields ($1.90 per acre).Jones (1996) found that the nearer fields inMgeta, Tanzania, are used for growing horti-cultural crops for the market, which potentiallygenerate the highest revenues. I infer that someof the remote fields in De Lisle’s (1978) and

Jones’ (1996) studies must be closer to the mar-ket than the near fields were. If that is the case,the two reports may be supportive to my argu-ment that labor distance is more influentialthan market distance.

A Proposed Model

Many of the assumptions in von Thünen’smodel have been relaxed. Climate, soil types,distance from market, market demand, tech-nology, etc. are recognized as important factorsaffecting the patterns of agricultural land useand distribution of agricultural activities (seeGrigg 1995). Yet, labor location has not beenrecognized. Obviously, without labor there areno economic activities or agricultural land use.It is time that distance from labor center berecognized and incorporated into land-usemodels.

Based on the above discussion, I propose alabor-center model of agricultural land use thatincorporates effects on land use by both laborand market distances. This model may be ex-pressed by the following two formulas, de-pending on the specific situation.

Based on the modern von Thünen land rentformula developed by Dunn (1954),

R

�

E

(

p

�

a

)

�

Efk

,

a labor-center formula may be:

R

�

E

(

p

�

a

)

�

Efk

�

Ltd

(1)

Table 3

Regressions of Land Rent on Labor and Market Distances and Fertilizer Uses (n

�

1801)

Variable Beta b p-level Beta b p-level

Labor distance

�

0.6154

�

4163.2 0

�

0.6289

�

4254.5 0Organic manure 0.1468 1.04 0 0.1461 1.03 0Chemical fertilizer

�

0.0675

�

0.48 0.002

�

0.0671

�

0.47 0.002Market distance

�

0.0406

�

16.75 0.040

Intercept 13046.9 12919.4R

2

0.5992 0.5977Adjusted R

2

0.5978 0.5967F 426.82 566.08

p

0

0

Table 2

Pearson Correlations among Land Rent, Distance, and Fertilizer Variables (n

�

1801)

Land Rent Labor Distance Market Distance Manure Use

Labor distance

�

0.71432Market distance

�

0.28377 0.34806Organic manure 0.61046

�

0.72554

�

0.24530

Chemical fertilizer

�

0.31323

0.32321

0.11747

�

0.48462

Note: All coefficients are significant at p

�

0.001.


81

where:

R

� land rent per unit area of land for a specificfield,

E � yield of crop,p � market price per unit of commodity,a � production cost per unit of commodity,f � transport cost per unit of distance from

market for each commodity,k � distance from market,L � labor and other inputs that need to be

transported from labor center to the field,t � transport cost per unit of distance from

labor center for inputs, andd � distance from labor center.

Instead of production costs a being every-where constant as in Dunn’s formula, now pro-duction costs a � Ltd are a function of labordistance because there is a second transporta-tion cost involved in moving inputs to the siteof production. The new equation allows farm-ers to vary input intensity across the farm in re-sponse to intra-farm transportation cost differ-entials. The formula may be used to explain thespatial patterns of land use and land rent wherecrops are shipped to the market directly fromfields. Figure 4 is the graphical representationof this model. In cases where crops are firstshipped to labor center for preparation, Figure5 may be a better representation. A formula forFigure 5 is presented as follows:

R � Rw � Ltd (2)

where Rw is the (peak) rent, or the E( p � a) �Efk, at the labor center.

In Figures 4 and 5, a straight line shown asthe von Thünen’s slope indicates the market ef-fect. In Figure 4 the rent on the side of each vil-lage closer to market is higher than the rent onthe other side because the market distance isless. In both Figures 4 and 5 the size of moredistant villages is smaller than that of closer vil-

lages, to illustrate the effect of market location.However, the von Thünen’s slope alone can notexplain the zigzag pattern of rents in Figures 4and 5, which is the result of both labor andmarket distances while labor distance plays amore important role.

Different from existing land-use theory, theproposed model regards agriculture as an in-dustry using localized gross inputs, and labor isregarded as such an input. This approach issupported by Page (1996) who argues for theincorporation of agriculture into industrial ge-ography. When farmers settle down in a townor village, they become immobile for the pe-riod during which they cultivate their land.

The proposed model differs from existingmulticentral models because it contains bothlabor and market centers. Multicentral modelsof land use have been presented, for example,by Dunn (1954), Jones and Krummel (1987),and Jones (1991). Multicentral urban land-usemodels are well documented. However, in thesemodels the centers are market centers whilelabor centers that are not markets are excluded.

The proposed model also differs from sub-stituting a labor center for a market center in avon Thünen formulation. In a model with twomarket centers, land use near a second market-center is affected by distance from this secondmarket but not affected by distance from thefirst market, because the same product from afield is normally shipped to only one market,usually the nearest one. As shown in Figures 4and 5, labor and market distances are two dif-ferent forces that simultaneously affect landrent and land use. A labor center’s effect onland use is predominant within its settlementperimeter and limited by the distance labortravels to work, while a market’s effect can befelt over a much larger area. In areas remotefrom labor, rent may be minimal, even though

Figure 4: A labor-center model of agricultural landuse where crops are shipped directly from fields tomarket.

Figure 5: A labor-center model of agricultural landuse where crops are shipped to labor center forpreparation before going to market.

82 Volume 52, Number 1, February 2000

these areas may be close to a market (Figs. 4and 5). On the other hand, in areas remotefrom market, rent and land-use intensity maynot be minimal, if these areas are close to alabor center. Both market and labor centers areessential elements of the economy and neitherone can substitute the other.

Concluding Remarks

Both qualitative observations and quantitativedata analysis support my argument that laborlocation is more important than market loca-tion in predicting agricultural land rent for thestudy area, and labor location is important atboth microscale and larger scales. Research inagricultural land use needs to consider both la-bor and market distances, instead of only one ofthem, which has been the norm so far. How-ever, this paper is only an initial step toward alabor-center model of agricultural land use.Hopefully interested researchers will conductfurther tests to gather more empirical evidenceto verify and develop the model. It will be in-teresting to be able to isolate labor centers as anindependent variable, with controls for soilquality, road system, and the size of labor cen-ters. That will enable one to further separatethe effects of labor and market distances andmodel them separately.

I hope that my proposed model will motivatescholars to research labor centers as an inde-pendent location factor, and such research hasthe potential to enhance location theory. Forexample, the proposed model may be useful instudying the spatial pattern of human impacton land. Research indicates that distance fromvillage affects conservation and environmentaldegradation in Tanzania ( Jones 1996), the Ni-gerian Sahel (Adams and Mortimore 1997),India (Robbins 1998), Rwanda (Clay et al.1998), and Uganda (Lindblade et al. 1998). Myrecent research also shows that labor locationaffects conservation, land quality, and land deg-radation in China (Liu 1999). �

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LEE LIU (Ph.D., Texas A&M University, CollegeStation) is Assistant Professor of Geography in theDepartment of Social Sciences, Southwestern Okla-homa State University, Weatherford, OK 73096-3098. E-mail: [email protected]. His research interestsinclude agricultural land use, land-use theory, landdegradation, environment, and economic develop-ment, with a regional emphasis in China.

labor location and agricultural land use in jilin, china

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