The impact of urban expansion on agricultural land use intensity in China

• We examine urban expansion and agricultural land use intensity at the national scale.
• Urban conversion of agricultural land drives the decline of agricultural intensity.
• The area of cultivated land is negatively correlated with agricultural intensity.
• Off-farm labor transfer causes labor scarcity in the agricultural sector.
• Our results reveal the links between urbanization and agricultural land change.

China's urbanization has resulted in significant changes in both agricultural land and agricultural land use. However, there is limited understanding about the relationship between the two primary changes occurring to China's agricultural land – the urban expansion on agricultural land and agricultural land use intensity. The goal of this paper is to understand this relationship in China using panel econometric methods. Our results show that urban expansion is associated with a decline in agricultural land use intensity. The area of cultivated land per capita, a measurement about land scarcity, is negatively correlated with agricultural land use intensity. We also find that GDP in the industrial sector negatively affects agricultural land use intensity. GDP per capita and agricultural investments both positively contribute to the intensification of agricultural land use. Our results, together with the links between urbanization, agricultural land, and agricultural production imply that agricultural land expansion is highly likely with continued urban expansion and that pressures on the country's natural land resources will remain high in the future.