Reconciling grain production and environmental costs during rural livelihood transitions: a simulation-based approach in southern China

Tension is building up between the need to provide food for eight billion humans and the necessity to safeguard their environment. In many parts of the world, the ongoing transition of farmers’ livelihoods is creating even greater uncertainty in addressing the dual challenges of food security and environmental sustainability. Using a simulation-based approach, this study develops an operational framework to explore ways to reconcile rice production and environmental costs from the perspective of the heterogeneity of farmers’ individual characteristics, farmland transfer strategies, and grain production. Using data from land-use images as well as farming household, plot, and farmland quality surveys, we tested our study framework in Taojiang County, Hunan Province, southern China. The results demonstrate that under the combined influence of rural livelihood transitions and targeted rice subsidies, cultivated land in Taojiang County has rapidly concentrated in large-scale farmers over the past decade. This concentration has resulted in higher levels of carbon emissions and water pollution while stabilizing the local supply of grain. Our findings suggest that to reduce the environmental costs of grain production during rural livelihood transitions, policymakers should develop robust policy instruments to encourage medium-scale cultivation patterns while guiding large-scale farmers optimize their inputs. In addition, more support should be provided to smaller-scale, environmentally friendly production patterns.