Determination of consolidation priority for farmland at county level using grid method

In order to scientifically calculate the difficulty coefficient of farmland construction and reasonably determine the priorities of the consolidation units, an indicator system of the farmland consolidation priorities evaluation was constructed. Taking Baoying county, Jiangsu province as an example, the system was based on the study of land use character, with regular grids as evaluation unit, and was from five influencing aspects including land use structure, spatial pattern of farmland, improvable production capacity, soil environmental quality, social population factor on research unit of regular grid. The farmland consolidation priorities of the study area were calculated with 532 grid units of evaluation which were divided by 1' x 1' latitude and longitude grid. Based on the consolidation priorities, the study area were classified into three classes: short term, medium term and long term grid unit, whose ratio was 26%, 35% and 39%, respectively. The long term grids distributed in the central and plain area of southern Baoying county, where had better characters of farmland spatial pattern, low fragmentation degree and better farmland qualities. The results demonstrated that the method proposed in this paper was helpful to determine the farmland consolidation priorities and clarified the priority consolidation areas and directions. This research provides support and scientific reference for regional farmland consolidation planning and high standard basic farmland construction at county level.