Does Land Rental Impede Grain Production? Evidence from 8 Provinces in China

China’s food security has increasingly been one worldwide concern. And, most researchers argue that land transfer further aggravates the problem of non-grain in rural China. We theoretically pursue the the internal mechanism of the effects of land rental on the grain production and then employ 2,088 household survey data collected in China to assess their relationship. The estimated results indicate that land rental positively affects grain production, especially with the decrease of agricultural labor. Contrarily, land rental has significantly negative impact on grain production with the increase of agricultural labor. Besides, we also find that the reason that land rental stimulates grain production is that the grain production can be more easily mechanized than that of cash crops in rural China, which is conductive to reducing the high labor cost in agriculture and encouraging off-farm employment. Thus, when considering the development of mechanization in grain production and high labor cost in agriculture, grain production has been the voluntary choice of the land leaseholders, and this undoubtedly ensures China’s grain security.