Geographic concentration and driving forces of agricultural land use in China

Abstract

Since the 1990s, China has entered the middle phase of urbanization which leads to the existence of significant geographic concentration of agricultural land use. The average value of regional concentration degree of ten representative crops in China was 59.03%, showing a high degree of geographic concentration in farming. Some typical agriculture provinces in farming have arisen. The degree of geographic concentration in farming has been enhanced, with the average degree of regional concentration of ten crops increasing considerably by 3.83% in 2009 compared to that in 1990 (55.20%). The spatial growing center of farming was found to move westward and northward during 1990–2009. Meanwhile food production concentrated in the Northeast China and main producing area, and cash crops production concentrated in Northwest China. Off-farm employment of rural labor force, commercialization of agricultural product and regional comparative advantage are the main driving forces of geographic concentration of agricultural land use. Governmental policies with regional differences should be considered to promote further development of agriculture.

Keywords

agricultural land use / geographic concentration / driving forces / China

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Acknowledgements

This study was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No.40971062).

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2014 Higher Education Press and Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg