# Urbanization and Grain Production Pattern of China: Dynamic Effect and Mediating Mechanism
###### Abstract  
The flow and reallocation of agricultural production factors induced by urbanization play an important role in the changes of the grain production pattern (GPP). Using provincial panel data from 1996 to 2018 in China as the research sample, the center of gravity transfer-standard deviation ellipse model was applied to understand the change characteristics of GPP. Next, a dynamic spatial panel econometric model was established to test the impact of urbanization on GPP, and a spatial mediated effect model was used to identify the mediated transmission paths played by cropland utilization, planting structure adjustment, and agricultural technology progress in this impact process. The main conclusions showed that (1) the grain production COG of China transferred to the northeast, gradually resulting in a spatial pattern from the northeast to the southwest; (2) the urbanization process has a significant negative impact on the GPP, with each unit increase in urbanization resulting in a 0.30% decrease in the grain production concentration index; (3) cropland utilization, planting structural adjustment, and agricultural technology progress play significant mediating roles in the impact of urbanization on the GPP, and their mediating effects can weaken the direct negative impact of urbanization, among which the mediating effect of planting structure adjustment is the highest (13.9%). The study findings provide a new perspective for further understanding the relationship between urbanization and grain production pattern and also provide theoretical references and practical insights for improving the allocation efficiency of agricultural production factors and formulating scientific regional planning policies for grain production in the high-quality transformation of urbanization. grair production pattern; urbanization; cropland utilization; planting structure; agricultural technology progress; dynamic spatial panel econometric model; mediating effect model +
Footnote †: journal: Appl  
decrease in grain production, and grain supply has shifted from a long-term shortage to a basically balanced level [2]. However, the imbalanced progress of urbanization has caused a significant imbalance in grain self-sufficiency between regions in China [3] and significant changes in the spatial pattern of grain production, as evidenced by the decreasing proportion of grain production in the south and the increasing proportion in the north. With the grain production proportion rising from 40.90% in 1978 to 59.15% in 2019, the north has fully surpassed the south in grain production, resulting in the spatial pattern transformation from \"southern grain to the north\" to \"northern grain to the south\" [4,5]. Ensuring food security is an important guarantee for the promotion of urbanization. Under the dual urban-rural institutional structure, the conflicts and contradictions among different types of land use mean that the urbanization expansion requires urban land to spread to rural areas, and the rural labor force will gradually shift and flow to urban areas according to certain industries (agricultural sector \(\rightarrow\) non-agricultural sector) and locations (rural areas \(\rightarrow\) small towns \(\rightarrow\) small and medium cities \(\rightarrow\) big cities), meaning that the reduction of cropland and population flow caused by urbanization expansion can directly act on grain production [6], triggering the adjustment of the input structure of production factors and resulting in the loss of cropland and structural shortage of labor, leading to the non-agricultural transformation of cropland [7].