The aim of China's Grain for Green Program is to reduce soil erosion by subsidizing reforestation of farmland located on steep slopes with low crop productivity. I show theoretically that the incentives created by the program combined with insufficient oversight have led to afforestation of non-sloped highly productive farmland. With a unique land transition dataset, I show that this unintended land use effect has been substantial, amounting to nearly one-fifth of the total amount of cropland converted to forest. This unexpected displacement of highly productive farmland represents a form of slippage/leakage that has not been fully explored in the literature on payment for ecosystem services programs. This form of land displacement is significant in the context of China as well as other countries with limited arable land relative to population size as it can negatively impact national food production targets and self-sufficiency goals.
This book provides a comprehensive review of Grain for Green, China’s nationwide program which pays farmers to revert sloping or marginal farm land to trees or grass. The program aims to improve the ecological conditions of much of China, and the socioeconomic circumstances of hundreds of millions of people. GfG is the largest reforestation, ecological restoration, and rural development initiative in history, combining the biggest investment, the greatest involvement, and the broadest degree of public participation ever. The book is organised in three sections. Part One reviews the history of land management in China from 1949 to 1998, exploring the conditions that led to the introduction of GfG, and comparing it to other reforestation programs. Part Two offers an overview of GfG, describing the timeline of the program, compensation paid to farmers, the rules concerning land and plant selection, the extent to which these rules were followed, the attitudes of farmers towards the program, and the way in which the program is organized and implemented by various state actors. Part Three discusses the impact of the GfG, from both ecological and socio-economic standpoints, looking at the economic benefits that result from participating in the GfG, the impact of the GfG across local economies, the redistribution of the labor force and the sustainability of the program, in particular the question of what will happen to the converted land when payments to farmers end.
Using provincial data, the present paper examines the impact of cultivated land conversion on agriculture and the environment. It is found that the grain production center is gradually moving towards more fragile and water scarce areas, putting more pressure on the environment. Land conversion caused large losses in ecosystem service values in the 1990s, but large scale ecological restoration programs have been implemented since 2000 to compensate for such losses. The ecological restoration programs are concentrated in regions with relatively low land productivity, whereas cultivated land conversion usually takes place in areas with relatively high land productivity. Newly-cultivated land, especially that in areas marginally suit for agricultural production, is likely to have much lower productivity levels than the original cultivated land. Because the stock of potentially cultivable land is almost exhausted, China's grain self-sufficiency policy can only be maintained by preserving the available stock of arable land and increasing its productivity in a sustainable way.
After the 1998 flood of the Yangtze River, one of the world’s most important rivers, environmental experts realized that, to control flooding, much more attention must be paid to vegetation cover on bare lands, thin forest land, and shrub-covered land in mountain areas. In 1999, an environmental monitoring project of the forests in 11 provinces of the Yangtze River basin was undertaken. This book reports on soil loss prediction and the successful practices of soil loss control in eastern China in recent years.
The Grain for Green Program (GFGP) in China, one of the largest Payment for Ecosystem Service (PES) schemes, has been regarded as an effective approach to achieving sustainable development. However, the conclusion of the impact of GFGP on farmers' income reported in the existing literature is still controversial. It is crucial to find the combined effect of the impact of the GFGP on farmers' income and the causes of the heterogeneous effects. In this paper, the impact of the GFGP on farmers' income with different income sources was analyzed by using the Meta-analysis method with 66 domestic and international studies from 1999 to 2022. The farmers' income was further divided into four different income groups, total income (including subsidies), total income (excluding subsidies), farm income, and off-farm income. It is noteworthy that the differences in methodology, such as measurement of independent variables, data acquisition methods, sample regions, and the choice of estimation model could affect the results of the impact of the GFGP on farmers' income. Thus, the heterogeneous effect of methodology had been conducted further. The results demonstrated: (1) The GFGP had a significant positive impact on total income (including subsidies) and off-farm income. However, the GFGP on total income (including subsidies) is not significant, and it may harm the farm income. (2) Using continuous variables (area of participation and years of participation) had higher estimated coefficients as opposed to using binary variables (whether to participate). (3) The effect of using primary data on total income (excluding subsidies) and off-farm income was higher than using secondary data. (4) The impact of the GFGP on farmers' off-farm income was strongest in the central region, followed by the western region, and weakest in the nationwide region. The sample regions had no significant difference in other income groups. (5) The GFGP also had smaller effects on total income (including subsidies), total income (excluding subsidies), and off-farm income using the endogenous model compared to not using the model.
Although China is generally considered to have suffered continuous deforestation over most of its history, forests were protected or even planted and maintained for centuries in some places. This study identifies six such cases. It uses historical evidence to show that individuals and communities act to manage resources sustainably for a number of reasons including economic benefit, religious or symbolic purposes, and that sustainability of the management system depends on the form of control exerted over the resource.
China's Sloping Land Conversion Program (SLCP) aims to restore degraded marginal cropland, often on slopes, to forest and grass covers to control water runoff and soil erosion and improve the ecological conditions. Additionally, the program seeks to reduce poverty, close income gaps between rural and urban households, and promote a more sustainable transition of the rural economy.This dissertation provides a comprehensive analysis of the SLCP's socioeconomic impacts on rural households in the provinces of Sichuan and Shaanxi. The specific research objectives are to assess the overall impact of the program on household income and its variation over time and at different earning levels, and to evaluate its impact on household labor allocation and structure change.Utilizing a panel dataset compiled by China's National Research Center of Forest Economics and Development, this dissertation employs some cutting-edge methods, including difference-indifferences (DID), propensity score matching (PSM), and quantile regression, to identify and estimate the program impacts. Coupled with econometric methods used, the dataset, which includes information on 1,620 households in Sichuan and Shaanxi during 1998-2014, enables a more thorough analysis of the SLCP's socioeconomic impacts over the sub-periods of 1998-2008 and 2009-2014, as well as the whole period.The study reveals that the SLCP had positive effects on households' total and land-based income in both provinces, with stronger impacts in Shaanxi. In Sichuan, the program influenced off-farm income and off-farm labor time negatively during 1998-2008 but positively impacted total labor time, land-based labor time, and off-farm labor time during 2009-2014. In Shaanxi, the SLCP's effect on off-farm income was positive, whereas its impact on households' total and land-based labor time was negative. When accounting for SLCP subsidies received in past years, the impacts on households' total and land-based income became more significant in both provinces. The effects on households' land production income in Shaanxi were positively influenced by subsidies received in the previous year. As households' participation time increased, the impact on their total and land-based income also increased in both provinces.The analysis across income quantiles further demonstrates that the SLCP subsidy had a significantly positive impact on households' total and land-based income in both provinces, with more substantial effects in Shaanxi. The program's influence on labor allocation and transfer varied across income groups and over different sub-periods. In Sichuan, the SLCP negatively impacted off-farm income for the lowest income groups during 1998-2008 and off-farm labor time for medium-high and high-income groups during 2009-2014. In Shaanxi, the SLCP negatively affected land-based labor time for low-income households and off-farm labor time for medium-high income households during 1998-2008. Moreover, the SLCP's impact on households' total and land-based income was more pronounced for households below the poverty lines, with stronger effects in Shaanxi. The program's influence on off-farm income was positive for households below the global poverty line in Shaanxi during 1998-2014, while a positive effect was observed for households above the national poverty line during 2009-2014.This comprehensive analysis has generated valuable insights to the understanding of the SLCP's socioeconomic impacts on rural households in China. By considering different income groups, poverty lines, and time periods, the study provides evidence-based policy recommendations for the design and implementation of more effective and sustainable ecological restoration programs.
