Impacts of high-standard farmland construction policy on cultivated land system resilience

Cultivated land plays an important role in maintaining national food production, social stability and high-quality economic development of a region. Cultivated land system resilience (CLSR) is an important indicator to characterize the ability of cultivated land system to gradually recover its original state after being exposed to certain risks or shocks in the external environment, such as natural ecological environment, social and economic environment. It is of great significance to improve CLSR level for promoting health and sustainable use of cultivated land resources. High-standard farmland construction is a policy tool of the public investment in China. Existing studies on the effect of high-standard farmland construction mainly focus on the impacts on cultivated land quality, agricultural productivity and food security. However, there is a lack of research on the relationship between high-standard farmland construction and the CLSR. Therefore, based on the theoretical analysis of the impact of high-standard farmland construction on CLSR, this paper uses panel data from 31 provinces in China from 2001 to 2022 to build a difference in difference model to comprehensively investigate the effects of high-standard farmland construction on CLSR. The results showed that: (1) The average CLSR level showed a fluctuating upward trend in China from 2001 to 2022, with the value ranging from 0.274 to 0.427, a total increase of 55.57%. The spatial difference of CLSR was significant. High-level areas were mainly distributed in Eastern China, such as Jiangsu, Shandong, Fujian, and Guangdong. Low-level areas were concentrated in Western China, such as Sichuan, Yunnan, Guizhou, and Xizang. Besides, the CLSR level in the Central China was relatively low in the early stage and slowly increased in the later. (2) High-standard farmland construction had a significant positive effect on CLSR, which gradually increases over the time. This conclusion still held true after parallel trend and robustness tests. (3) Mechanism analysis showed that the high-standard farmland construction played a positive role in improving the level of farmland scale management, farmland infrastructure and agricultural mechanization, and then promotes the level of CLSR. (4) This effect had great heterogeneity in food production location and geographical region. The strongest effect was exerted in the major grain-producing areas, followed by production-marketing balance areas, and lowest in major grain-marketing areas. In terms of geographical region, the effects from high to low were Western China, Central China, Northeastern China, and Eastern China. Based on these findings, policy implications were drawn. On the one hand, the government should continue to increase investment in the project of high-standard farmland construction, and give full play to its role in improving the CLSR levels. On the other hand, differentiated and diversified high-standard farmland construction models and management and protection measures should be implemented according to the different resilience levels of regional cultivated land systems.