Does Culture Affect Farmer Willingness to Transfer Rural Land? Evidence from Southern Fujian, China

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear Authors, the revised paper improved significantly after embodied of the reviewers’ comments. Even if you have been taking into account the biggest part of my comments, in my opinion remain two points that need analysis or improvement.
1. You did not explain with which way was selected the 30 households for interviews and why only 30?
2. The absence of a serious comparison of research results with similar studies is still there in the Discussion section.

Author Response

1. You did not explain with which way was selected the 30 households for interviews and why only 30?

Thank you for your valuable question.

In order to further summarize and refine the impact of cultural elements on farmers' willingness to transfer land, this research selected a total of 30 households as interviewees in Dingye Village, Renjia Village, and Shangping Village.

After 7 p.m., we randomly walked into farmers' house. At first, we explained the purpose of the interview, then asked whether they had land and they were willing to be interviewed. After receiving an affirmative answer, we made tea and had an interview. Because it is a custom to make tea and have a talk at the same time in Minnan Area

The results of the interview were coded to screen out the main factors influencing farmers' willingness to transfer land. After the end of coding, this research pushed the interview links to 5 farmers for theoretical saturation test. The results showed that there was no new theme of farmers' willingness to transfer land, and it could not supplement the existing normative concepts. Therefore, it was judged that 30 households for interviews and the results of qualitative analysis had reached saturation state.

2. The absence of a serious comparison of research results with similar studies is still there in the Discussion section.

Thank you for your valuable question. we have changed as follows:

First, the existing research emphasizes the dominant roles of personal attributes and economic rationality on farmers’ willingness to transfer land. The explanatory variables in the existing literature were found to be the educational levels of farmers, engagement in agricultural production, and income structure, which have significant and positive effects on farmer willingness to transfer land. These results are in accordance with the findings in the existing research .such as Zhang et al (2020) pointed out that farmers’ willingness to transfer land is positively affected by non-farm working hours, non-farm income. Also, economic and housing security following land transfer are major concerns for farmers, and these factors are positively related to their willingness to transfer land, which had been confirmed by scholars. 

Second, many other factors should be taken into account in the transaction of farmland ownership besides economic factors. With the implementation of China’s Rural Revitalization Strategy, increasingly rural culture is gradually disappearing due to the influence of government policies and the external economy. However, there are still many rural areas with good protection of traditional culture in China, where the rural culture plays a dominant role in farmers’ emotions and daily lives. By focusing on the special situation of Chinese rural culture, this research investigated the mechanisms and roles of the existing “survival ethics” in influencing farmer willingness to transfer land and analyzed the effects of the major Southern Fujian cultural aspects. This is consistent with the characteristics of “the social network influences peasant households' land use decision-making”，such as consanguinity and kinship have an impact on farmer willingness to transfer land, that is, farmers focus on what neighbors and relatives are doing, no matter what the policy states. Furthermore, It was found that most of these cultural aspects played a positive role in influencing farmer willingness to transfer land，However， Scholars have not conducted comprehensive studies in this area. it was verified that rural culture had an important role in rural communities, complements and improves the existing theoretical framework.

 Finally, farmers are paying greater attention to future land use after transfers, another important factor impacting their land transfer decisions. Compared with other construction land such as for industry, farmers are more inclined to transfer their land without changing its use, or to transfer the land for village construction. For example, these farmers are concerned about potential ecological problems related to subsequent land uses, Current studies have focused on farmers'  important awareness of  ecological function of the land, but have not yet considered it in farmers' willingness to transfer land , which is a supplement to the current theoretical research.

 

 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

The authors have addressed all my comments carefully. I have no further comments. 

Author Response

Thank you for your comments.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

This manuscript is a resubmission of an earlier submission. The following is a list of the peer review reports and author responses from that submission.

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear author/s,

the paper interesting and the results useful for future development of the agriculture in the study area.

I have two recommendations:

1. please present how the sample size was established and how the respondents were selected.
2. please present the income in USD to be easier for the readers, or add a note with an exchange rate. 

Reviewer 2 Report

Overall
The paper is very interest and touch a 'modern' problem of the Chinese society and economy. The transfer of land in the Chinese reality is a problem with legal, social and economic aspects. This paper investigates specifically the factors affecting land transfer by the farmers of Southern Fujian, with purpose to be used for the rural tourism development of the area. As we can understand, in China the rural tourism development is a process that follows a central programming (top - down approach) who seems to do not take into account the needs and maybe the contribution of the local population as a crucial factor of development. The rural tourism in the western countries is based on endogenous development and a main ingredient of the rural tourism product is the local culture. The authors avoid a international oriented to the literature review generally and prefer to focused to their research into domestic level. Of course, the purpose of the paper is the decision making about land transfer and not the development of rural tourism but these two issues are linked direct.
Comments
1. In the Introduction section, I suggest after the purpose of the study in the last paragraph, the authors to add a brief structure of the paper. From this point and between lines 70-79, I suggest the content to be transfer into the sub-section of study area or to delete if it is repetition.
2. The sub-section 2.1. (The Southern Fujian culture) is too short and do not add nothing in the section 2, I suggest to be transferred in the sub-section 3.1 (Study area).
3. The phrase between lines 210-212 is better to erase because it is mentioning to research' results before the wording the research hypotheses.
4. Generally, missing a substantive theoretical framework (that section 2) for this reason I suggest the re-writing of section 2.
5. According line 237 a total of 30 households were selected for the qualitative research (In-depth interviews). Please explain with which way was selected the 30 households and why only 30?
6. In lines 278 and 279 is mentioning that: 'To ensure the quality of survey data, face-to-face interviews were used on-site' but in line 280 is mentioning that: 'A total of 600 paper and 50 electronic questionnaires were distributed'. How can someone make face-to-face interviews, and the same time to distributes the questionnaires (direct or through electronic mail)?
7. In the section of Results (especially in sub-section 4.2) a big part, seems to be owned in the Discussion. Authors, are presenting the results but they continuous with comments for them in relationship with the theory.
8. The Discussion section (the first sub-section before 5.1 in page 14) it is simple repetition of the results.
9. There are repetitions at many points in the text. Please, check and avoid repetitions. These repetitions make the manuscript bigger in size and they do not help the readers. They should also eliminate some descriptive information which adds nothing to the manuscript. 
10. In the Discussion section (especially in 5.1 and 5.2) there is no comparison of the research results with similar international oriented studies.

Reviewer 3 Report

Title of the manuscript: Does culture affect farmer willingness to transfer rural land? Evidence from Southern Fujian, China.

The study addresses an interesting subject and contributed to exploring the impact of culture on farmer willingness to transfer rural land in three villages in Fujian, China. Overall, this is an organized manuscript; however, there are some major issues that need to be addressed. Indeed, this research could be significantly improved if the methodology for analysis were made clearer. I recommend more clarity in this regard. I believe addressing the below comments help improving this manuscript:

4. The authors should refer to the applied methodology in the Abstract briefly and vividly.
5. The authors should underscore the significance of their study in the abstract in 1-2 sentences.
6. More importantly, the authors should highlight the main conclusions of their study in 1-2 sentences in line 18 of the Abstract. The readers need to know "what is the main outcome of the research".
7. The authors should avoid repeating keywords already exists in the title (e.g. farmer willingness). The authors should replace them with new relevant words in the text.
8. Lines 24-31 in page 1: “Recently, the Chinese government has introduced a series of policies to promote the development of rural tourism. In 2018, the Central Government urged the acceleration …. Several villages with rich resources and cultural heritage were to become new destinations for the large domestic tourism market (Zhou, 2018; Xi et al., 2014)[1-2]” This mentioned paragraph can be added as the second paragraph in the Introduction section. In this version, the beginning of the Introduction section is not very interesting. It is preferred to open it up by introducing “farmers culture and transfer rural land” in one paragraph.
9. The authors should carefully rewrite and arrange in-text references based on layout instructions for authors.
10. Line 63 in page 2, the authors should add a few relevant/recent studies along with their approaches and outcomes and indicate the main contribution of the current study by comparing it with previous ones.
11. Line 65 in page 2, the authors should add a paragraph and highlight the global novelty of their study comparing previous studies.
12. Lines 65-66 in page 2: “The main objective of this research was to investigate the cultural factors affecting land transfers within Chinese villages for the purpose of rural tourism development.” The authors should reword this sentence for more fluency.
13. Lines 66-70 in page 2: “The analysis explored how particular rural cultural mores influenced the decision making of farmers. The principal contribution is the clarification of the cultural influences on farmer willingness to transfer land to others. Also, the findings will help in developing a more comprehensive theoretical framework for research on this topic.” The authors should reformulate these sentences for more readability.
14. Lines 90-92 in page 2: “The culture is relatively simple and rough, and thus it has certain characteristics of being spontaneous, such as the persistence of the cautious pursuit of the future, inclusive conservation of the sea, and being pioneering and innovative.” The authors should reword this sentence.
15. Lines 99-102 in page 3: “The rights of operation of land contracted by farmers are protected. By the Law of Land Administration of the People’s Republic of China, no unit or individual is allowed to occupy, trade or illegally transfer land by other means, but land contractual management rights may be transferred by law.” The authors should reformulate these sentences for more fluency.
16. Lines 221-228 in page 5: “The Southern Golden Triangle is located in the southeastern … characteristics, which make it especially suitable for developing rural tourism.” there are no references. The authors should cite relevant and recent references to support their argument in these paragraphs.
17. “Figure 2. Research area” is unclear. The authors should enhance the resolution or replace it with the clearer one.
18. Lines 236-237 in page 6: “In-depth interviews were used to identify the cultural factors affecting farmer willingness to transfer land and were conducted in April 2018.” The in-depth interview is a data collection method not the main qualitative method. Thus, the authors should highlight the qualitative applied method in “2. Qualitative research design” sub-section.
19. Lines 237-238 in page 6: “A total of 30 households with ten households each from Dingye, Renjia, and Shangping were selected.” The authors should reword this sentence.
20. Lines 238-239 in page 6: “The interviews were carried out using the Southern Fujian dialect.” I suggest removing this part. This step seems ineffective in the research process.
21. Lines 238-244 in page 6: “The interviews were carried out using the Southern Fujian dialect. Fifty percent of the participants were male and 50% were female; 86.7% were aged from 40-70, and 13.3% were under 35 years old. There were 11 people with educational backgrounds below primary school, nine with bove junior high school, and ten with above secondary school or senior high school. Most of the households owned land. Seventy-three percent of the farmers cultivated land by themselves, and 27% had transferred their land out.” These explanations are related to the Results section not the Methods. Therefore, the authors should move and place this part to the Results section.
22. Lines 245-262 in pages 6-7: “The interview themes included: (1) Has your family lived in this village for generations, or when did you move here and where did you come from? How many acres … (7) What other factors affect your land transfer decision in addition to the land price?” I suggest removing these long part that is not necessary to mention all questions which are related to the qualitative phase. The results solely can complete this vision.
23. Lines 236-265 in page 7: “The interview recordings were summarized and edited into documents and the irregular dialects in the interview process were corrected and standardized, forming 30 recording texts.” The authors should reword this sentence for more fluency.
24. Lines 280-282 in page 7: “A total of 600 paper and 50 electronic questionnaires were distributed and 646 were returned. Among the completed forms, questionnaires were valid, and the valid response rate was 82.6%.” There are some unclear issues regarding the methods used and analysis in quantitative method as well. What is statistical population? How samples have been chosen in this research? What is a sampling method? How the authors have selected sample size? In the Methods section the authors should justify these issues in “2. Quantitative research design” sub-section.
25. Lines 453-454 in page 14: “Land has long been considered as life security by rural farmers, which lowers their inclination to transfer land out and reduces the rural land allocation efficiency in China (Tao and Xu, 2005)[71]” The authors should remove this input from the beginning of the Discussion section as it is related to other studies.
26. Lines 554-556 in page 16: “To ensure the truth and the rationality of the findings, this research selected the villages where researchers lived and were familiar with. However, there are significant differences in the economic and tourism development of the three regions.” This kind of sample selecting method is not suitable and acceptable in an academic research. How do you justify this issue and can avoid the biased results? This process can affect the whole data collection and analysis. In my opinion, if this issue is not clarified, this manuscript could be rejected.
27. Lines 561-562 in page 16: “In contrast, Xiamen is dominated by tertiary industry development, such as tourism, thus its development of rural tourism is the most mature.” The authors should reformulate this sentence for more clarity.
28. The English grammar and style should be checked throughout the manuscript.