Does E-Commerce Participation among Farming Households Affect Farmland Abandonment? Evidence from a Large-Scale Survey in China

Rui Zhou, Mingbo Ji and Shaoyang Zhao
Additional contact information
Rui Zhou: College of Marxism, Sichuan University, Chengdu 610207, China
Mingbo Ji: College of Marxism, Sichuan University, Chengdu 610207, China

Land, 2024, vol. 13, issue 3, 1-23

Abstract: Reducing farmland abandonment is crucial for food security. While the association between e-commerce proliferation and farmland abandonment at the village level has been discussed, the correlation at the farming household level remains unexplored. Utilizing 2020 survey data from 3831 rural households across 10 Chinese provinces, this study develops an “e-commerce–household–farmland abandonment” framework to explore the co-occurrence of e-commerce engagement with farmland abandonment, using econometric models. The findings reveal that e-commerce engagement significantly increases farmland abandonment, with implicit and explicit rates rising by 10.3% and 28.5%, respectively. It also shifts household incomes from planting to forestry, animal husbandry, and fisheries, leading households to reallocate labor away from agriculture, thereby intensifying abandonment. However, land transfer can alleviate this co-occurrence. This study also explores the variation in the association between e-commerce participation and farmland abandonment in relation to agricultural subsidies, economic development, and the presence of family farms. By elucidating the dynamics at the household level, this research offers fresh perspectives for developing countries to safeguard food security by curbing farmland abandonment.

Keywords: farming households; e-commerce participation; farmland abandonment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q15 Q2 Q24 Q28 Q5 R14 R52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/13/3/376/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/13/3/376/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jlands:v:13:y:2024:i:3:p:376-:d:1358306

Access Statistics for this article

Land is currently edited by Ms. Carol Ma

More articles in Land from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().