Over the past 4 decades, China has experienced a nutritional transition and has developed the largest population of internet users. In this study, we evaluated the impacts of internet access on the nutritional intake in Chinese rural residents. An IV-Probit-based propensity score matching method was used to determine the impact of internet access on nutritional intake. The data were collected from 10,042 rural households in six Chinese provinces. The results reveal that rural residents with internet access have significantly higher energy, protein, and fat intake than those without. Chinese rural residents with internet access consumed 1.35% (28.62 kcal), 5.02% (2.61 g), and 4.33% (3.30 g) more energy, protein, and fat, respectively. There was heterogeneity in regard to the intake of energy, protein, and fat among those in different income groups. Moreover, non-staple food consumption is the main channel through which internet access affects nutritional intake. The results demonstrate that the local population uses the internet to improve their nutritional status. Further studies are required to investigate the impact of internet use on food consumed away from home and micronutrient intake.

Ending hunger, achieving food security, and promoting sustainable agriculture are the main targets of sustainable development goals. It is well known that cropland resources are the most essential factor in achieving sustainable development goals. However, China has been facing the problem of a continuous reduction in cropland resources. Reducing the abandonment of cropland has become an important way to curb the reduction in cropland resources. Can agricultural machinery harvesting services reduce cropland abandonment in rural China? To answer this scientific question, this study employs the Survey for Agriculture and Village Economy data from 8345 samples of 12 provinces in rural China. The extended regression models (i.e., the extended probit regression model and the extended interval regression model) are used to empirically analyze the relationship between agricultural machinery harvesting services accessed by farmers and cropland abandonment. The results are as follows. Agricultural machinery harvesting services accessed by farmers significantly reduced the probability of cropland abandonment and the proportion of the area of abandoned cropland in farmers’ contracted cropland area decreased by 18.5% and 20.3%, respectively. Moreover, the heterogeneity analysis results showed that farmers’ access to agricultural machinery harvesting services significantly reduced cropland abandonment in small-scale groups, without elderly households, with nonagricultural income groups, and in the eastern region. This study also provides some policy implications for policymakers to reduce cropland abandonment in rural China.

Smallholder farms have played an essential role in agricultural production and food security. In order to increase farm size, the Chinese government announced a reform of the grain subsidy program in 2015. Under the reform, 20% of the aggregate input subsidy, as well as the pilot subsidy to large-scale farmers and the incremental part of the agricultural support and protection subsidy budget, were used to support increasing farm size. This study evaluated the impact of China’s grain subsidy reform on the land use of smallholder farms to investigate whether the reform achieved its goal. Based on 2063 samples obtained from the 2013–2015 Survey for Agriculture and Village Economy data in Huang-Huai-Hai Plain, we conducted a difference-in-difference model to solve the problem of missing counterfactual states in policy evaluation. Farms from Henan and Shandong were assigned to the treatment group, and farms from Hebei were assigned to the control group. The results revealed that the average treatment effect on the treated of the impact of the grain subsidy reform on the wheat-sown area was −25% (0.10 ha). Furthermore, there was heterogeneity in regard to the subsidy reform effects in different sown-area groups. The reform had the most significant impact on the smallest farmers. We also found that China’s grain subsidy reform had a significant and positive effect on the amount of outflow land area, while the impact of subsidy reform on land tenure was insignificant. Our findings suggest that while encouraging large-scale farms, it is necessary to take into account farmers’ small-scale operations and gradually promote the transformation of small-scale operations to large-scale operations. The Chinese government should strengthen the supervision of land use to achieve the goal of ensuring food security.