This book focuses on the UN Sustainable Development Goals, using nationally representative datasets from the China Rural Household Panel Survey and China Labor-force Dynamics Survey to reveal the temporal and spatial evolution of cropland abandonment in rural China, and systematically examines the underlying drivers and governance strategies of farmers' cropland abandonment. More specifically, this book creatively uses "People-Land-Money-Rights" as an analytical clue, and comprehensively employs modern econometric methods such as panel Tobit model, staggered DID model, and panel fixed-effect model to empirically investigate the impact of off-farm employment, land fragmentation, agricultural comparative return, and tenure insecurity on farmers' cropland abandonment. Based on these, this book also further explores the role of new agricultural business entities, farmland water conservancy projects, agricultural subsidy reform, and land tenure reform in curbing cropland abandonment. This book highlights the urgent need to address cropland abandonment and provides valuable insights into land protection in the context of food security and sustainable agriculture.
