Data Sheet 1_The paradox of policy-driven land change: rural cropland expansion and grain production decline in China.pdf

Against a backdrop of rapid rural transformation, maintaining the role of traditional villages in safeguarding national food security in China has become an increasingly difficult challenge. Although China’s traditional village protection policy (the Policy) includes requirements for cropland protection and specifies ensuring food security as a key goal, its impact on maintaining main grain (MG) output remains uncertain. Using a multiple DID framework, this study evaluates how the Policy influences cropland, main grain land (MGL) and MG output in traditional villages, and explores the mechanisms behind the mismatch between changes in MGL and MG output. The results show that despite significantly expanding cropland, the Policy has not led to simultaneous increases in MGL and MG output. This indicates the reliance on cropland expansion is not having the intended effect; in fact, MG output in traditional villages in China has declined. Interestingly, the magnitude of the policy-driven decline in MG output is far smaller than the decline in MGL. This is due to the fact that technological progress has improved the efficiency of MG production, reducing the potential decline in crop yields caused by the reduction in MGL. This study incorporates the key factors of population, cropland, and grain at the village level into a unified analytical framework to evaluates the effect of village policies that take cropland expansion as a means of increasing MG output. The analysis not only addresses limitations in the existing literature, such as analyzing relevant factors in isolation or the lack of empirical research at the village level, but also provides key micro-level evidence for optimizing food security policies for traditional villages.