Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

Ageing threatens sustainability of smallholder farming in China

Nature volume 616, pages 96–103 (2023)Cite this article

Subjects

Abstract

Rapid demographic ageing substantially affects socioeconomic development1,2,3,4 and presents considerable challenges for food security and agricultural sustainability5,6,7,8, which have so far not been well understood. Here, by using data from more than 15,000 rural households with crops but no livestock across China, we show that rural population ageing reduced farm size by 4% through transferring cropland ownership and land abandonment (approximately 4 million hectares) in 2019, taking the population age structure in 1990 as a benchmark. These changes led to a reduction of agricultural inputs, including chemical fertilizers, manure and machinery, which decreased agricultural output and labour productivity by 5% and 4%, respectively, further lowering farmers’ income by 15%. Meanwhile, fertilizer loss increased by 3%, resulting in higher pollutant emissions to the environment. In new farming models, such as cooperative farming, farms tend to be larger and operated by younger farmers, who have a higher average education level, hence improving agricultural management. By encouraging the transition to new farming models, the negative consequences of ageing can be reversed. Agricultural input, farm size and farmer’s income would grow by approximately 14%, 20% and 26%, respectively, and fertilizer loss would reduce by 4% in 2100 compared with that in 2020. This suggests that management of rural ageing will contribute to a comprehensive transformation of smallholder farming to sustainable agriculture in China.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Rent or buy this article

Prices vary by article type

from$1.95

to$39.95

Learn more

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Fig. 1: Population ageing and farm size in China.
Fig. 2: SEM of ageing impacts on agriculture.
Fig. 3: Impact of ageing on agricultural sustainability across China’s provinces in 2019.
Fig. 4: Comparison of smallholder and new farming models on agricultural indicators in 2019.
Fig. 5: Relative changes of agricultural sustainability owing to ageing under SSP scenarios by 2100.

Data availability

Rural household survey data supporting this study are openly available at http://ssec.zju.edu.cn/dataset/CRHPS/. Source data are provided with this paper.

Code availability

All analyses were performed using Stata version 12.0. The codes are available in Supplementary Information, which allows the estimates to be reproduced.

References

  1. Harper, S. Economic and social implications of aging societies. Science 346, 587–595 (2014).

    Article  ADS  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  2. Chen, C., Goldman, D. P., Zissimopoulos, J. & Rowe, J. W. Multidimensional comparison of countries’ adaptation to societal aging. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 115, 9169–9174 (2018).

    Article  ADS  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  3. Bloom, D. E. et al. Macroeconomic implications of population ageing and selected policy responses. Lancet 385, 649–657 (2015).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  4. Yu, B., Wei, Y., Kei, G. & Matsuoka, Y. Future scenarios for energy consumption and carbon emissions due to demographic transitions in Chinese households. Nat. Energy 3, 109–118 (2018).

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  5. Li, M. & Sicular, T. Aging of the labor force and technical efficiency in crop production: evidence from Liaoning province, China. China Agric. Econ. Rev. 5, 342–359 (2013).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Ji, Y., Hu, X., Zhu, J. & Zhong, F. Demographic change and its impact on farmers’ field production decisions. China Econ. Rev. 43, 64–71 (2017).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Apipoonyanon, C. et al. Socio-economic and environmental barriers to increased agricultural production: new evidence from central Thailand. Outlook Agric. 50, 178–187 (2021).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. Rigg, J., Phongsiri, M., Promphakping, B., Salamanca, A. & Sripun, M. Who will tend the farm? Interrogating the ageing Asian farmer. J. Peasant Stud. 47, 306–325 (2020).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. Lutz, W., Sanderson, W. & Scherbov, S. The coming acceleration of global population ageing. Nature 451, 716–719 (2008).

    Article  ADS  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  10. Yang, J. et al. Projecting heat-related excess mortality under climate change scenarios in China. Nat. Commun. 12, 1039 (2021).

    Article  ADS  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  11. Chen, X., Huang, B. & Li, S. Population ageing and inequality: evidence from China. World Econ. 41, 1976–2000 (2018).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  12. Zhang, X., Guo, F. & Zhai, Z. China’s demographic future under the new two-child policy. Popul. Res. Policy Rev. 38, 537–563 (2019).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  13. Zeng, Y. & Hesketh, T. The effects of China’s universal two-child policy. Lancet 388, 1930–1938 (2016).

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  14. Satola, L. Problems of the aging of the farmers’ population in small farms in Poland. Sci. Pap. Ser. Manage. Econ. Eng. Agric. Rural Dev. 19, 305–310 (2019).

    Google Scholar 

  15. Cutler, J. et al. Ageing is associated with disrupted reinforcement learning whilst learning to help others is preserved. Nat. Commun. 12, 4440 (2021).

    Article  ADS  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  16. Huang, X., Lu, Q., Wang, L., Cui, M. & Yang, F. Does aging and off-farm employment hinder farmers’ adoption behavior of soil and water conservation technology in the Loess Plateau? Int. J. Clim. Change Strateg. Manage. 12, 92–107 (2020).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  17. Min, S., Waibel, H. & Huang, J. Smallholder participation in the land rental market in a mountainous region of Southern China: impact of population aging, land tenure security and ethnicity. Land Use Policy 68, 625–637 (2017).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  18. Li, S. et al. An estimation of the extent of cropland abandonment in mountainous regions of China. Land Degrad. Dev. 29, 1327–1342 (2018).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  19. Jansuwan, P. & Zander, K. K. What to do with the farmland? Coping with ageing in rural Thailand. J Rural Stud. 81, 37–46 (2021).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  20. Chen, R., Xu, P., Song, P., Wang, M. & He, J. China has faster pace than Japan in population aging in next 25 years. Biosci. Trends 13, 287–291 (2019).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  21. Peng, X. China’s demographic history and future challenges. Science 333, 581–587 (2011).

    Article  ADS  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  22. Usman, M., Sawaya, A., Igarashi, M., Gayman, J. J. & Dixit, R. Strained agricultural farming under the stress of youths’ career selection tendencies: a case study from Hokkaido (Japan). Hum. Soc. Sci. Commun. 8, 19 (2021).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  23. Ren, C. et al. The impact of farm size on agricultural sustainability. J. Clean. Prod. 220, 357–367 (2019).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  24. Zhang, X. et al. Quantitative assessment of agricultural sustainability reveals divergent priorities among nations. One Earth 4, 1262–1277 (2021).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  25. Ren, C. et al. Fertilizer overuse in Chinese smallholders due to lack of fixed inputs. J. Environ. Manage. 293, 112913 (2021).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  26. Wu, Y. et al. Policy distortions, farm size, and the overuse of agricultural chemicals in China. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 115, 7010–7015 (2018).

    Article  ADS  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  27. Yu, Y., Hu, Y., Gu, B., Reis, S. & Yang, L. Reforming smallholder farms to mitigate agricultural pollution. Environ. Sci. Pollut. Res. 29, 13869–13880 (2022).

  28. Fang, D. & Guo, Y. Induced agricultural production organizations under the transition of rural land market: evidence from China. Agriculture 11, 881 (2021).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  29. China Statistics Press. China Statistical Yearbook (China Statistical Publishing House, 2020).

  30. Guo, A., Ding, X., Zhong, F., Cheng, Q. & Huang, C. Predicting the future Chinese population using Shared Socioeconomic Pathways, the Sixth National Population Census, and a PDE model. Sustainability 11, 3686 (2019).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  31. O Neill, B. C. et al. The roads ahead: narratives for shared socioeconomic pathways describing world futures in the 21st century. Glob. Environ. Change 42, 169–180 (2017).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  32. Chen, X. Vigorously cultivating new agricultural business subjects—a message at the Annual Meeting of the China Agricultural Economics Association (in Chinese). Issues Agric. Econ. 35, 4–7 (2014).

    Google Scholar 

  33. Zhu, Z. et al. Integrated livestock sector nitrogen pollution abatement measures could generate net benefits for human and ecosystem health in China. Nat. Food 3, 161–168 (2022).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  34. Bai, Z. et al. China’s livestock transition: driving forces, impacts, and consequences. Sci. Adv. 4, r8534 (2018).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  35. Zhang, C. et al. Rebuilding the linkage between livestock and cropland to mitigate agricultural pollution in China. Resour. Conserv. Recycl. 144, 65–73 (2019).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  36. Jin, S. et al. Decoupling livestock and crop production at the household level in China. Nat. Sustain. 4, 48–55 (2021).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  37. Xia, L., Lam, S. K., Yan, X. & Chen, D. How does recycling of livestock manure in agroecosystems affect crop productivity, reactive nitrogen losses, and soil carbon balance? Environ. Sci. Technol. 51, 7450–7457 (2017).

    Article  ADS  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  38. Borychowski, M., Sapa, A., Czyżewski, B., Stępień, S. & Poczta-Wajda, A. Interactions between food and nutrition security and the socio-economic and environmental dimensions of sustainability in small-scale farms: evidence from a simultaneous confirmatory factor analysis in Poland. Int. J. Agric. Sustain. 20, 998–1014 (2022).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  39. Gu, B., Zhang, X., Bai, X., Fu, B. & Chen, D. Four steps to food security for swelling cities. Nature 566, 31–33 (2019).

    Article  ADS  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  40. Wang, S. et al. Urbanization can benefit agricultural production with large-scale farming in China. Nat. Food 2, 183–191 (2021).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  41. Duan, J. et al. Consolidation of agricultural land can contribute to agricultural sustainability in China. Nat. Food 2, 1014–1022 (2021).

  42. Glowinkel, M., Mocan, M. & Külkens, M. Survey of German farmers towards the impact of the Common Agricultural Policy on their businesses. Bulg. J. Agric. Sci. 27, 646–655 (2021).

    Google Scholar 

  43. Marcacci, G. et al. Large-scale versus small-scale agriculture: disentangling the relative effects of the farming system and semi-natural habitats on birds’ habitat preferences in the Ethiopian highlands. Agric. Ecosyst. Environ. 289, 106737 (2020).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  44. Li, Y. et al. Increase in farm size significantly accelerated stream channel erosion and associated nutrient losses from an intensive agricultural watershed. Agric. Ecosyst. Environ. 295, 106900 (2020).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  45. KC, S. & Lutz, W. The human core of the shared socioeconomic pathways: population scenarios by age, sex and level of education for all countries to 2100. Glob. Environ. Change 42, 181–192 (2017).

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  46. Niroula, G. S. & Thapa, G. B. Impacts of land fragmentation on input use, crop yield and production efficiency in the mountains of Nepal. Land Degrad. Dev. 18, 237–248 (2007).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  47. Tan, S., Heerink, N. & Qu, F. Land fragmentation and its driving forces in China. Land Use Policy 23, 272–285 (2006).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  48. Garland, G. et al. Crop cover is more important than rotational diversity for soil multifunctionality and cereal yields in European cropping systems. Nat. Food 2, 28–37 (2021).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  49. Chen, X. et al. Producing more grain with lower environmental costs. Nature 514, 486–489 (2014).

    Article  ADS  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  50. Gu, B., Ju, X., Chang, J., Ge, Y. & Vitousek, P. M. Integrated reactive nitrogen budgets and future trends in China. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 112, 8792–8797 (2015).

    Article  ADS  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  51. Cui, Z. et al. Pursuing sustainable productivity with millions of smallholder farmers. Nature 555, 363–366 (2018).

    Article  ADS  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  52. Yuan, B., Zhan, J. & Chen, C. Evolution of a development model for fruit industry against background of an aging population: intensive or extensive adjustment? Sustainability 10, 49 (2018).

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

This study was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (42261144001, 42061124001 and 71925005), National Key Research and Development Project of China (2022YFD1700700) and Pioneer, Leading Goose R&D Program of Zhejiang (2022C02008) and the China Agriculture Research System (CARS-01). This work is a contribution from Activity 1.4 to the ‘Towards the International Nitrogen Management System’ project (INMS, http://www.inms.international/) funded by the Global Environment Facility (GEF) through the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).

Author information

Author notes

  1. These authors contributed equally: Chenchen Ren, Xinyue Zhou

Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Environmental and Resource Sciences, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China

    Chenchen Ren, Chen Wang, Yaolin Guo, Yu Diao, Sisi Shen, Jianming Xu & Baojing Gu

  2. Department of Land Management, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China

    Chenchen Ren

  3. Policy Simulation Laboratory, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China

    Chenchen Ren & Chen Wang

  4. School of Management, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China

    Xinyue Zhou & Wanyue Li

  5. UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, Penicuik, UK

    Stefan Reis

  6. University of Exeter Medical School, Truro, UK

    Stefan Reis

  7. School of Chemistry, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK

    Stefan Reis

  8. Zhejiang Provincial Key Laboratory of Agricultural Resources and Environment, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China

    Baojing Gu

Authors
  1. Chenchen Ren
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Xinyue Zhou
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Chen Wang
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Yaolin Guo
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. Yu Diao
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  6. Sisi Shen
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  7. Stefan Reis
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  8. Wanyue Li
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  9. Jianming Xu
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  10. Baojing Gu
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Contributions

B.G. designed the study. C.R. conducted the research. B.G. and C.R. wrote the first draft of the paper. S.R. revised the paper. C.W., Y.G., Y.D., S.S. and W.L. processed the raw data. X.Z. and J.X. contributed to the discussion of the paper.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Baojing Gu.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The authors declare no competing interests.

Peer review

Peer review information

Nature thanks Bazyli Czyżewski, Ken Giller and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work. Peer reviewer reports are available.

Additional information

Publisher’s note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Extended data figures and tables

Extended Data Fig. 1 Changes of agricultural sustainability with ageing in 2019.

(a) Total agricultural input; (b) Agricultural output; (c) Labour productivity; (d) Fertilizer use; (e) Manure use; (f) Fertilizer loss ratio; (g) Per capita disposable income from agricultural sector; (h) Farm size; (i) Machine input. (a)-(c), (d)-(e), (g)-(i) show the economic, environmental and social impacts of agricultural sustainability, respectively. The predicted means the counterfactual value with ageing ratio equivalent to 1990. The observed means the observed value in 2019. The input, output, fertilizer, manure and machine are all weighted with the total cultivated area on province-level. Labour productivity is weighted with the total labour input on province-level. Farm size and income are arithmetic averages. Acronyms for 31 provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities directly under the Central Government are listed in Table S4. Shanghai, Tibet and Xinjiang are not depicted due to data limitation.

Source Data

Extended Data Fig. 2 Demographic and socioeconomic changes in China under different scenarios by 2100.

(a) Ageing ratio; (b) Adult labour ratio; (c) Average education years; (d) Total population; (e) Urban population ratio; (f) Gross domestic product per capita (PGDP). SSP1–4 refers to Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs) scenarios. Urbanization in SSP1 is consistent with it in SSP4 in panel (e). Data are from SSP Database.

Source Data

Extended Data Fig. 3 Future agricultural sustainability changes due to ageing under SSP scenarios by 2100.

(a) Total agricultural input; (b) Agricultural output; (c) Labour productivity; (d) Fertilizer use; (e) Manure use; (f) Fertilizer loss ratio; (g) Per capita disposable income from agricultural sector; (h) Farm size; (i) Machine input. (a)-(c), (d)-(e), (g)-(i) show the economic, environmental and social impacts of agricultural sustainability, respectively. The Baseline assumed no changes in the future. SSP1–4 refers to Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs) scenarios. NF is the abbreviation of new farming. The input, output, fertilizer, manure and machine are all weighted with the total cultivated area. Labour productivity is weighted with the total labour input. Farm size and income are arithmetic averages.

Source Data

Extended Data Fig. 4 Abandoned cropland changes under SSP scenarios by 2100.

(a) Abandoned cropland ratio change; (b) Relative change of abandoned cropland ratio compared to 2020. Abandoned cropland ratio is abandoned cropland area to the total cropland area across the whole country. Relative change is carried out in percentage terms. NF, New farming. SSP1–4 refers to Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs) scenarios. The Baseline assumed no changes in the future.

Source Data

Extended Data Table 1 Summary of the structural equation model shown in Fig. 2
Full size table
Extended Data Table 2 New farming mitigates ageing and its impacts on agriculture
Full size table

Supplementary information

Supplementary Information

This file contains Supplementary Text, Tables 1–7, Figs. 1–6, Methods, Code and References.

Peer Review File

Source data

Rights and permissions

Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.

Reprints and Permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Ren, C., Zhou, X., Wang, C. et al. Ageing threatens sustainability of smallholder farming in China. Nature 616, 96–103 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-023-05738-w

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-023-05738-w

This article is cited by

Comments

By submitting a comment you agree to abide by our Terms and Community Guidelines. If you find something abusive or that does not comply with our terms or guidelines please flag it as inappropriate.

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing