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Urbanization can benefit agricultural production with large-scale farming in China

Nature Food volume 2, pages 183–191 (2021)Cite this article

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Abstract

Urbanization has often been considered a threat to food security since it is likely to reduce the availability of croplands. Using spatial statistics and scenario analysis, we show that an increase in China’s urbanization level from 56% in 2015 to 80% in 2050 would actually release 5.8 million hectares of rural land for agricultural production—equivalent to 4.1% of China’s total cropland area in 2015. Even considering the relatively lower land fertility of these new croplands, crop production in 2050 would still be 3.1–4.2% higher than in 2015. In addition, cropland fragmentation could be reduced with rural land release and a decrease in rural population, benefiting large-scale farming and environmental protection. To ensure this, it is necessary to adopt an integrated urban–rural development model, with reclamation of lands previously used as residential lots. These insights into the urbanization and food security debate have important policy implications for global regions undergoing rapid urbanization.

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Fig. 1: Changes in urban, rural and cropland areas and rural population.
Fig. 2: Spatial changes in land use with an urbanization level of 80% in 2050.
Fig. 3: Changes in crop production at the county level.
Fig. 4: Changes in per-capita cropland of rural residents at the county level.
Fig. 5: Methods for predicting urban and rural land use change.

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Data availability

The data supporting the findings of this study beyond those provided in the Supplementary Information are all from open-source databases or literature citations. Source data are provided with this paper.

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Acknowledgements

This study was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (41822701, 41773068, 41721001 and 71834005), National Key Research and Development Project of China (2018YFC0213300), Discovery Early Career Researcher Award of the Australian Research Council (DE170100423) and Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (2019XZZX004–11). The work of S.R. was supported by the UK Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) national capability award NE/R000131/1 (Sustainable Use of Natural Resources to Improve Human Health and Support Economic Development (SUNRISE)) and award number NE/R016429/1 as part of the UK-SCAPE programme delivering national capability.

Author information

Author notes

  1. These authors contributed equally: Sitong Wang, Xuemei Bai, Xiaoling Zhang.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Environmental and Resource Sciences, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, People’s Republic of China

    Sitong Wang, Jianming Xu & Baojing Gu

  2. Policy Simulation Laboratory, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, People’s Republic of China

    Sitong Wang

  3. Fenner School of Environment and Society, Australian National University, Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, Australia

    Xuemei Bai

  4. Department of Public Policy, City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, People’s Republic of China

    Xiaoling Zhang

  5. Shenzhen Research Institute, City University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen, People’s Republic of China

    Xiaoling Zhang

  6. UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, Penicuik, UK

    Stefan Reis

  7. European Centre for Environment and Human Health, University of Exeter Medical School, Truro, UK

    Stefan Reis

  8. School of Agriculture and Food, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

    Deli Chen

  9. Zhejiang Provincial Key Laboratory of Agricultural Resources and Environment, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, People’s Republic of China

    Jianming Xu & Baojing Gu

Authors
  1. Sitong Wang
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Contributions

B.G. designed the study. S.W. conducted the research. B.G. and S.W. wrote the first draft of the paper. X.Z., X.B., D.C., J.X. and S.R. revised the paper. All authors contributed to discussion and revision of the paper.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Baojing Gu.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The authors declare no competing interests.

Additional information

Peer review information Nature Food thanks Xuejun Liu, Xin Zhao and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

Publisher’s note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Extended data

Extended Data Fig. 1 Spatial changes of land use with an urbanization level of 70% in 2030.

From 2015 to 2030, new released croplands are concentrated in the NCP, Middle and Lower Yangtze River Basin, and Northeast Plain, while the intensive areas of urban expansion are the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, the Yangtze River Delta, and the Pearl River Delta. Base map is applied without endorsement from GADM data (https://gadm.org/).

Extended Data Fig. 2 Spatial changes in land use with an urbanization level of 90% in 2050.

From 2015 to 2050, new released croplands are concentrated in the NCP, Middle and Lower Yangtze River Basin, and Northeast Plain, while the hot spots for urban expansion are the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, Yangtze River Delta, and Pearl River Delta. Extended Data Fig. 1 and 2 show the distribution maps of land use changes from urbanization level 56%, 70%, and 80% for 2015, 2030 and 2050, respectively. Base map is applied without endorsement from GADM data (https://gadm.org/).

Extended Data Fig. 3 Changes in cropland area at the county level.

(a) From 2000 to 2015; (b) From urbanization level 56% (2015) to urbanization level 80% (2050) without rural land being reclaimed; (c) From urbanization level 56% (2015) to urbanization level 70% (2030) with rural land being reclaimed; (d) From urbanization level 56% (2015) to urbanization level 80% (2050) with rural land being reclaimed. The bar chart in the middle of the Figure shows the overall changes for 2000–2015 and each scenario in the future for China as a whole (Supplementary Table 3). Base map is applied without endorsement from GADM data (https://gadm.org/).

Source data

Extended Data Fig. 4 Changes of soil organic carbon at the county level.

(a) From 2000 to 2015; (b) From urbanization level 56% (2015) to urbanization level 80% (2050) without rural land being reclaimed; (c) From urbanization level 56% (2015) to urbanization level 70% (2030) with rural land being reclaimed; (d) From urbanization level 56% (2015) to urbanization level 80% (2050) with rural land being reclaimed. The bar chart in the middle of the Extended Data Fig. 4 shows the overall changes for 2000–2015 and each scenario in the future, taking China as a whole (Supplementary Table 4). Base map is applied without endorsement from GADM data (https://gadm.org/).

Source data

Extended Data Fig. 5 Changes in yield.

(a) From urbanization level 56% (2015) to urbanization level 70% (2030) with rural land being reclaimed; (b) From urbanization level 56% (2015) to urbanization level 80% (2050) with rural land being reclaimed. The bar chart in the middle of the figure shows the overall changes for each scenario in the future for China as a whole (Supplementary Table 5). Supplementary Fig. 14 shows the yield in major cereal in 2015. Base map is applied without endorsement from GADM data (https://gadm.org/).

Source data

Extended Data Fig. 6 Changes in rural population.

(a) From 2000 to 2015; (b) From urbanization level 56% (2015) to urbanization level 80% (2050) without rural land being reclaimed; (c) From urbanization level 56% (2015) to urbanization level 70% (2030) with rural land being reclaimed; (d) From urbanization level 56% (2015) to urbanization level 80% (2050) with rural land being reclaimed. (a) and (b) estimate the registered population, while (c) and (d) estimate the resident population. The bar chart in the middle of the Figure shows the overall changes for 2000–2015 and each scenario in the future, taking China as a whole (Supplementary Table 8). Base map is applied without endorsement from GADM data (https://gadm.org/).

Source data

Extended Data Fig. 7 Changes in cropland area, soil organic carbon, and crop production at the county level.

(a) Changes in cropland area from urbanization level 56% (2015) to urbanization level 90% (2050) without rural land being reclaimed; (b) Changes of cropland area from urbanization level 56% (2015) to urbanization level 90% (2050) with rural land being reclaimed; (c) Changes of soil organic carbon from urbanization level 56% (2015) to urbanization level 90% (2050) without rural land being reclaimed; (d) Changes of soil organic carbon from urbanization level 56% (2015) to urbanization level 90% (2050) with rural land being reclaimed; (e) Changes of crop production from urbanization level 56% (2015) to urbanization level 90% (2050) without rural land being reclaimed, predicted by SOC; (f) Changes of crop production from urbanization level 56% (2015) to urbanization level 90% (2050) with rural land being reclaimed, predicted by SOC. Base map is applied without endorsement from GADM data (https://gadm.org/).

Extended Data Fig. 8 Changes in crop production, per capita cropland, and rural population at the county level.

(a) Changes in crop production from urbanization level 56% (2015) to urbanization level 90% (2050) without rural land being reclaimed, predicted by the yield of 2015; (b) Changes of crop production from urbanization level 56% (2015) to urbanization level 90% (2050) with rural land being reclaimed, predicted by the yield of 2015; (c) Changes of per capita cropland from urbanization level 56% (2015) to urbanization level 90% (2050) without rural land being reclaimed; (d) Changes of per capita cropland from urbanization level 56% (2015) to urbanization level 90% (2050) with rural land being reclaimed; (e) Changes of rural population from urbanization level 56% (2015) to urbanization level 90% (2050) without rural land being reclaimed; (f) Changes of rural population from urbanization level 56% (2015) to urbanization level 90% (2050) with rural land being reclaimed. Base map is applied without endorsement from GADM data (https://gadm.org/).

Extended Data Fig. 9 Cost of reclamation (1000 USD/ha).

All data are from the records of the website of China Land Consolidation and Rehabilitation after 2017 (http://www.lcrc.org.cn/tdzzgz/zxgz/gbzntjs/).

Source data

Extended Data Fig. 10 Locations of reclaimed land from 2000 to 2015.

Gridded datasets of land use and GDP in 2000 and 2015 are from the Resource and Environment Data Cloud Platform (http://www.resdc.cn/Default.aspx). Base map is applied without endorsement from GADM data (https://gadm.org/).

Supplementary information

Supplementary Information

Supplementary Figs. 1–18 and Tables 1–16.

Reporting Summary

Supplementary Data 1

Source data of Supplementary Fig. 17.

Supplementary Data 2

Source data of Supplementary Fig. 18.

Source data

Source Data Fig. 1

Source data of Fig. 1a,b.

Source Data Fig. 3

Source data of Fig. 3.

Source Data Fig. 4

Source data of Fig. 4.

Source Data Extended Data Fig. 3

Source data of Extended Data Fig. 3.

Source Data Extended Data Fig. 4

Source data of Extended Data Fig. 4.

Source Data Extended Data Fig. 5

Source data of Extended Data Fig. 5.

Source Data Extended Data Fig. 6

Source data of Extended Data Fig. 6.

Source Data Extended Data Fig. 9

Source data of Extended Data Fig. 9.

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Wang, S., Bai, X., Zhang, X. et al. Urbanization can benefit agricultural production with large-scale farming in China. Nat Food 2, 183–191 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43016-021-00228-6

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