**1. Introduction**

Rural areas currently have inadequate land income, low land use efficiency, and some farmers have even left their farms [1–3]. As a result, appropriate and organized use of land has become crucial [4,5]. The transfer of land use rights is referred to as a land transfer. Improved land use efficiency and higher land revenue are the goals of legally transferring a farmer's land to other farmers or commercial groups while keeping contracting and usage rights. Land transfer is an efficient way to support rural economic development and raise farmers' living standards, since it may effectively reduce land abandonment, encourage agricultural scale operations, and boost farmers' revenue [6–8]. Land transfer has drawn a great deal of attention from academics both domestically and internationally due to the rapid expansion of the social economy, which has caused a huge number of farmers in developing nations to move to cities and a corresponding increase in the act of land transfer [9,10]. Because in many other nations outside China

**Citation:** Liu, D.; Wang, Y.; Chen, Y.; Yang, G.; Xu, H.; Ma, Y. Analysis of the Difference in Changes to Farmers' Livelihood Capital under Different Land Transfer Modes—A Case Study of Manas County, Xinjiang, China. *Land* **2022**, *11*, 1369. https://doi.org/ 10.3390/land11081369

Academic Editors: Yongsheng Wang, Qi Wen, Dazhuan Ge and Bangbang Zhang

Received: 28 July 2022 Accepted: 19 August 2022 Published: 22 August 2022

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**Copyright:** © 2022 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/).

land is typically exchanged directly on the land market and is privately held, research on land transfer by foreign academics has tended to concentrate on land transactions, land rent, price, and the land market system [11,12]. For instance, Wineman et al. [9] contend that various effects on land allocation may result from different land market transactions. According to Weldesilassie Alebel B and colleagues, effective land management is a crucial component of rapid urbanization. Kibrom et al. [13] examined how land markets responded to changes in land scarcity in terms of re-rental market participation rates, pricing, and contractual structures, using nationally representative household survey data from Ethiopia, Malawi, and Tanzania. In China, ownership, contractual rights, and management rights are segregated into separate categories, under the notion of "separation of the three rights" [14]. Land transfers in China started to happen in the 1980s. The three main models are the lease model, which is exemplified by the Xiaogang area in Anhui [15], the exchange model exemplified by the Jiangjin area in Chongqing [16] and Shawan County in Xinjiang [17], and the transfer of contractual land rights through subcontracting and transferring to other farmers within a set time frame. Although academics have conducted several studies in this field, most of these have focused on a particular land transfer model [18–20], and very few have compared the variations among them.

Farmers are the primary beneficiaries of land transfers. These transfers will directly affect farmers' livelihoods, and studies on land transfers must take this into account. The land, assets, capabilities, and household income of farmers are collectively referred to as livelihood capital, within the sustainable livelihoods framework proposed by the UK Department for International Development (DFID) [21], and are further divided into natural capital, financial capital, social capital, and human capital [22]. Natural capital is the land that farmers own; financial capital is the money they have or can access; social capital refers to the social resources to which they have access; physical capital includes the tools, materials, equipment, and facilities they use for production and living; and human capital is the knowledge, education, and health status they rely on to make a living. Land transfer alters the amount of land that farmers own, by transferring land management rights. Some farmers may obtain more concentrated land, which may lower their production costs [23,24]. Other farmers may transfer their land to other work and have access to more social resources, which will diversify the sources of their income.

According to the available research, land transfer alters farmers' capital which affects their means of subsistence. Although there are several types of land transfer, few researchers have looked at variations in how various modalities affect farmers' capital for livelihood [25]. Most studies, particularly in arid and semi-arid regions, have paid less attention to the difficulties faced by farmers who sustain their livelihoods in less developed areas. Their economic growth is sluggish and resource-poor. There are significant disparities between dry and developed regions in the current state of farmers' livelihood capital [26,27]. However, the degree of agricultural growth in dry regions is low, and issues with dispersed farmers and fragmented land are significant [28]. The current study findings are intractable. Therefore, it is important to research how farmers in arid and semi-arid areas make a living. The leading agricultural production and animal husbandry area in western China is in the region of Xinjiang [29], which is a typical arid and semi-arid region. According to the third land survey, there are now 70.767 million hectares of cultivated land in Xinjiang. Within Xinjiang, Manas County is situated in the economic region of the Tianshan Mountains' northern side. The county has a strong base for agricultural growth and is predominantly agricultural [30,31]. In Manas County, a sizable number of land transfer methods have evolved as a result of the expansion of agricultural and rural regions [32]. The revenue of farmers has increased to some extent due to the variety of transfer channels. The productivity of most land in the area is still low, and farmers' livelihoods are precarious. Farmers that take part in land transfers may only manage to secure a temporary source of income, and be unable to establish a sustainable source of income [33,34]. At present, it is important to investigate how land transfers in Manas County affect farmers' livelihood capital, and to determine the best way to transfer land.

Therefore, the study region for this work was Manas County in Xinjiang, and the research subjects were 600 farmers who were chosen at random from eight villages and four towns in Manas County. First, the livelihood capital evaluation system was constructed to calculate the sampled farmers' livelihood capital. Second, the land management method was assessed to determine how Manas County organizes its land transfer. Next, analysis of the land transfer included various changes and differences to farmers' livelihood capital under various land transfer mechanisms, and finally further assessed the most appropriate land transfer mode in Manas County. The research concept, index system, and research findings of this study can serve as a reference for other arid and semi-arid regions, to improve the efficiency of rural land transfer and the livelihood of farmers in those regions. Although this study investigated only the Xinjiang region of China, the study area is representative of the typical arid and semi-arid regions to which it belongs.
