Resource reallocation: The mechanism and pathway of comprehensive land consolidation to promote agricultural scale operation

In the new period, the comprehensive land consolidation has been an important policy tool to promote agricultural transformation and rural revitalization. Focusing on the problem of cultivated land fragmentation, this paper aims to explain the mechanism of comprehensive land consolidation in promoting agricultural scale operation from two dimensions of resource reallocation and operating mode transformation, and then refine the path model and innovation mechanism of the comprehensive land consolidation in the case area. The research methods include theoretical analysis and exploratory case study. The research findings are as follows: Firstly, with the commercialization of household management and livelihood, the interest goal of household has changed from the pursuit of maximizing land output rate to the pursuit of maximizing labor productivity, and the labor force has been separated from agriculture or even completely withdrawn from agriculture to engage in non-agricultural employment in order to obtain higher labor remuneration, resulting in farmland abandonment or non-agriculture. This is an endogenous impulse, a process of farmers' reallocation of family resources, which objectively deconstructs the management mode of smallholder farmers, but also creates conditions for large-scale management. Secondly, the transformation and reconstruction of agricultural operation mode must deal with two major issues, the innovative allocation of resource elements (production problem) and the allocation of management surplus (accumulation problem). By establishing two links, the link between small farmers and village collectives, and the link between village collectives and new management subjects, the whole domain regulation can realize the horizontal integration and large-scale management of cultivated land. Thirdly, based on the current conditions of resources, the case town has explored a feasible path and model, guided the transformation of small farmers' decentralized management to the large-scale management of the new main body, and improved the land use efficiency and comprehensive benefits. In conclusion, the case town's practice shows that the comprehensive land consolidation can promote agricultural scale operation, the key lies in the mechanism innovation of interest linkage and profit distribution, and the related trend problems should be dealt with well.