Establishment and verification of the regionalization of cultivated land price in China

Abstract: Agricultural zoning on arable land price is an important prerequisite to standardize the trading order of the land market, further to prevent overcapitalization. The price zoning of cultivated land can also meet the requirements of national strategies, such as food security and the regional layout of agriculture, particularly under the context of agricultural modernization and rural revitalization in China. However, it is still lacking in the regionalization of the cultivated land price at present. In this study, a systematic framework was constructed to explore the influence factors of the arable land price using the principles of price guidance, comprehensive leadership, county independence, and spatial continuity, especially from three dimensions of natural endowment, social utilization, and economic environment. Five influencing factors were selected, including ≥10 ℃ accumulation temperature, annual average precipitation, altitude, the first-level division of standard farming system, and regional gross domestic product. The data of each factor in one-kilometer grid unit was superimposed, according to geospatial information technology. In the integrity of the county unit, the average of all grid attributes in the county unit was assigned to county units to preliminarily divide price zoning of arable land. The expert experience was fully considered to integrate the distribution of major geographical boundaries, including mountains, water systems, and administrative boundaries. The quantitative zoning was slightly artificially corrected to avoid inconsistencies with experience and cognition, as well as excessive fragmentation of zoning. Finally, the homogeneous area was further verified using the economic average grade of cultivated land quality and the price data in sample counties. The price zoning of cultivated land was determined using the homogeneous area division and the price of samples. The results showed that: 1) The comprehensive index of cultivated land price zoning presented a high-level agreement with the economic average of cultivated land quality, where 90.72% of homogeneous areas passed the consistency test of cultivated land price in sample counties. The national cultivated land price was divided into 225 homogeneous regions after superposition, adjustment, and verification. The number of homogeneous regions in each province was roughly 3-11, where each province was divided into 7 homogeneous regions on average. 2) If the price samples cannot cover the entire area, it was feasible to indirectly divide the cultivated land price zoning using the influencing factors and the limited samples. 3) The price of arable land was generally low in the west, middle in the middle, and high in the east. It is necessary to establish a long-term dynamic monitoring system in the future, particularly covering all levels of cultivated land prices, further to prevent excessive capitalization of agricultural land elements. This finding can provide sound support to food security, agricultural modernization, and rural revitalization.