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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Sustain. Food Syst.
Sec. Land, Livelihoods and Food Security
Volume 8 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fsufs.2024.1409066

Revitalizing Farmland for Food Production: A Novel Interpretation of farmland Abandonment

Provisionally accepted
Linling Geng Linling Geng 1*Yifeng Zhang Yifeng Zhang 2
  • 1 college of Economics and Management, Nanjing Forestry University, Nanjing, China
  • 2 Nanjing Forestry University, Nanjing, Jiangsu Province, China

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    The growing severity of farmland abandonment in rural areas has sparked concerns about the lack of people willing to cultivate the land. This study attempts to find the endogenous factors of farmland land abandonment among Chinese farmers and to curb land degradation to stabilize food security. Based on the China Labor-force Dynamics Survey (2016)(2017)(2018), this paper explores the effect of famine experience on farmland abandonment using logit and DID models. We find that famine experience does increase the probability and extent of farmland abandonment, and undergo a series of robustness tests. We also find that the famine stigma effect increases the likelihood and extent of farmland abandonment by increasing risk aversion and reducing social trust and investment in agriculture. The growth of urbanisation in China worsens the effects of famine, whereas local communal production services remove the effects of famine. The overall findings of this study provide useful insights for the government to protect land quality and food security and to carefully consider the role played by communities.

    Keywords: Farmland abandonment, Famine experience, risk aversion, Trust, Food security

    Received: 29 Mar 2024; Accepted: 07 Oct 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Geng and Zhang. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Linling Geng, college of Economics and Management, Nanjing Forestry University, Nanjing, China

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