The impact of migration characteristics on rural migrant households’ farmland use arrangements in China

Abstract

This paper investigates the impacts of migration characteristics on rural migrant households’ farmland use arrangements in China. The results reveal that trailing migration, duration of migration and the proportion of co-migrants have a significant effect on the probability of rural migrant households’ farmland abandonment. Commercial employment migration has a negative impact on the abandonment of farmland by migrant families. Migrant households are most likely to choose farmland abandonment in the western and middle regions of China and in small farmland areas. In the eastern region, and first tier and second tier Chinese cities, migrant households are more inclined to choose farmland transfer. Household earnings increase, which induces households to gradually give up the cultivation of farmland or to transfer farmland, constituting a mechanism in Chinese households’ farmland use arrangements. Notably, the consolidation of arable land should be the focus in areas of low economic development. Furthermore, an effective mechanism for the transfer of farmland should be established.

Do agricultural productive services alleviate farmland abandonment? Evidence from China rural household panel survey data

“…Among them, the land transfer effect is the largest, agricultural labour substitution is the second, and the technology adoption effect is the last, which implies that APS alleviate farmland abandonment caused by the constraint of the farmers' resource endowment. APS not only helps farmers manage land and expand the land scale but also eases labour and technology constraints (Lu et al, 2022;. Moreover, we find APS has a more significant effect on alleviating the land abandonment of elderly farmers, which is different from the study of Xue et al (Xue et al, 2022).…”

“…Most studies found the increasing proportion of nonagricultural employment of farmers may weaken comparative agricultural advantages, which increases the probability of land abandonment. As the proportion of off-farm income increases, farmers will abandon more plots (Lu and Wu, 2022). Hence, non-agricultural employment has a positive effect on land abandonment.…”

“…An area with a high incidence of landslides also has a high incidence of cropland abandonment (Deng et al, 2018b). The steep terrain not only increases land management costs (Yang et al, 2022), but also seriously affects APS's application effect (Lu et al, 2022). Steep mountain areas are unsuitable for crop farming, and applying APS requires a large amount of human and capital investments, which increases the difficulty of mechanized operation and reduces the economic benefits of service providers (Sklenicka, 2016).…”

Green Farming in India: Issues and Policy Perspective

“…The foremost goals of Sustainable Development Goals are to eradicate world hunger, achieve food security, and support sustainable agriculture. When the SDGs are considered as a whole, agriculture contributes, directly or indirectly, to each of the 17 sustainable objectives (Lu and Wu, 2022). For instance, without achieving food security, we cannot alleviate poverty.…”

Coordinated Development of Farmland Transfer and Labor Migration in China: Spatio-Temporal Evolution and Driving Factors

“…The decision-making behavior of farm households to transfer in or out farmland is correlated to the number of non-agricultural labor forces and agricultural labor productivity [21], whereas changes in land use are brought about by large-scale land transactions, while large-scale land transactions lead to changes in land use, both of which have a direct effect on household labor distribution and gender division of labor [22]. In addition, the absence of farmland transfer right [23], household income increases after labor migration [24], a well-functioning land market [25], and the instability of the duration of farmland contractual rights [26] can also significantly affect the level of LM. Due to the fixed time and maturity of crops, labor demand is mainly distributed throughout the growing season [27]; this means that the rural labor force has the possibility of moving out for employment.…”