Land abandonment under rural restructuring in China explained from a cost-benefit perspective

Abstract

a b s t r a c tChina has experienced socio-economic transitions in recent decades, featuring a large amount of rural labor migrating into urban areas. As a response, rural land use has been restructured across large areas. In this process, vast amounts of land have been abandoned due to labor loss, especially in mountainous areas. Understanding how land attributes determine which land parcels are abandoned is essential to sustainable development of rural areas. Here we examine how two main farmland parcel attributes, farmland-to-housing distance and land quality, by affecting farming costs and benefits, and thereby profits, determine farmland abandonment. We constructed a semi-empirical crop profit model based on output benefits and input costs derived from household survey data from mountainous Wulong County, Chongqing Province, China. With this model, crop profits can be estimated and in turn the farmland-tohousing distances at which farming profits diminish to zero ("zero profit distance", abbreviated as "ZPD") can be identified. Based on the hypothesis that land will be abandoned when cultivation cannot make profits, ZPD values can be used to predict patterns of abandonment. At current price levels, the ZPD values are 5.94 km, 3.84 km, 2.52 km and 1.48 km for first-class, second-class, third-class and fourthclass land, respectively. Overall, the observed occurrence of land abandonment in relation to farmland-to-housing distance and land quality is concordant with the model's predictions, supporting the underlying hypothesis that land will be abandoned when the farmland-to-housing distance exceeds the ZPD. These findings may serve as an important tool for predicting land abandonment and identifying countermeasures for mountainous areas.

Exploring the Factors Driving Seasonal Farmland Abandonment: A Case Study at the Regional Level in Hunan Province, Central China

“…Consequently, with the increasing opportunity cost of investing labor in farming, rural laborers are migrating to urban areas to work in non-agricultural industries. As a result, rural agriculture is facing a labor shortage, so farmland has suffered from abandonment and less-intensive cultivation [25]. As peasant households invest more labor and work in non-agricultural industries, farms face more risk of being abandoned.…”

“…With cultivated land abandonment in China, scholars have studied the pattern and driving factors from the micro-level of peasant households, parcels, and villages, mainly with the aim to understand perennial abandonment [8,24,25,27,42]. However, our understanding of seasonal abandonment is still insufficient.…”

“…Although the determinants of China's arable land abandonment have already been investigated by some scholars, almost all of these case studies concerned perennial abandonment and focused on the micro level (including households, villages, and land parcels) [8,24,25,27,42]. In addition, recent studies often focused on abandonment in mountainous areas, but little attention has been paid to the plains of China.…”

Analysis Framework of China’s Grain Production System: A Spatial Resilience Perspective

“…In other words, the already marginal benefit brought by agricultural activities gradually declines with the further increase of additional input (i.e., agricultural involution) [28]. Consequently, the income decline of grain-producing smallholders, decreased the attractiveness of grain production, part-time farming, and inefficient utilization of farmland continuously aggravated the situation [29]. Under this situation, some scholars have argued that large-scale production, reducing agricultural labor, promoting farmland circulation, and de-peasantization may be appropriate choices for China's grain production [30].…”

中国2000-2010年耕地低效转化的空间特征

“…。 其次，在农牧交错带等特定地区，受降水波动的影响，种植业与牧业交替进行，耕地向 草地转化时常发生。最后，至关重要的影响来自城市化的快速发展。随着大量农村剩余 劳动力向城市转移，加上农地流转不畅，人为导致的耕地撂荒现象日益严重 [3][4] 。从土地 利用变化的结果来看，在一定时间内，上述 3 种情况均表现为耕地向草地、灌木或裸地 的转化 [2,5] 。这种利用方式由集约型向粗放型、产出效益趋于减少的转化可以认为是耕地 的低效转化。耕地低效转化不仅影响粮食产量，还对生物多样性、土壤恢复、碳汇等具 有重要影响 [6][7] 。因此，利用高精度遥感数据分析耕地低效转化的空间分布特征，既可以 揭示我国土地利用变化的现状和问题，又有助于进一步探究其相关效应，为制定保证区 [8] 。相对而言，对于耕地撂荒 （Cropland Abandonment） 、农牧转化等造 成耕地低效转化的研究关注较少，且"撂荒"的含义也不确定 [7,[9][10][11] 。比如 Lieskovský等将 欧洲 CORINE Land Cover 分类系统中原有耕地转化为灌木或草本植物、少植被或无植被 覆盖的空地、内陆湿地的部分作为撂荒耕地 [12][13][14] Table 3 The regional decomposition of Theil Index and its percentage contribute …”