Urban-rural transformation and farmland conversion in China: The application of the environmental Kuznets Curve

Abstract This paper investigates the way in which changes in social and industrial structures brought about by the urban-rural transformation process impact upon the relationship between farmland conversion and economic growth in post-reform China. Through this study, panel data analysis revealed that an inverted U-shape relationship existed between the factors of farmland conversion and economic growth in China in the period 2000–2009. The turning point, whereby decreasing farmland conversion is able to occur alongside economic growth, was found to have occurred in 2008, the year when China's per capita GDP exceeded 3000 US dollars. Moreover, rural-urban migration was not found to be significant with respect to this relationship, while the industrial upgrading from secondary to tertiary industries was found to help reduce farmland conversion. The paper highlights the important role that market and governmental forces play in initiating the shift from extensive to intensive and highly efficient land-use patterns.