Does farmland abandonment harm agricultural productivity in hilly and mountainous areas? evidence from China

ABSTRACT This study aims to provide empirical evidence for the relationship between farmland abandonment and food security from the perspective of agricultural productivity. Specifically, based on 4,850 farmer households in the hilly and mountainous areas of rural China, this study uses the endogenous switching regression (ESR) method to solve the problem of self-selection in farmers’ decision-making on farmland abandonment and quantitatively examines the impacts of farmland abandonment on agricultural productivity. This study finds that in these hilly and mountainous areas, farmland abandonment improves land return by 14.06%. Namely, farmland abandonment can improve agricultural productivity, which also means that farmland abandonment may not be harmful to food security. The findings of this study may help developing countries better understand the problem of farmland use transformation and improve agricultural productivity, and it can provide references for enhancing the security of global food and nutrition.