# Mapping Abandoned Cultivated Land in China: Implications for Grain Yield Improvement
## 4 Discussion and Implications  
Cultivated land abandonment can be viewed as the outcome of the rapid progress of industrialization and urbanization, together with socio-economic transformations under the influence of the dual structure of the urban-rural division. Moreover, rural laborers increase their incomes through non-agricultural work, leading to the increasingly serious \begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c c c} \hline \hline
**Comprehensive Agricultural** & **Abandoned Area** & **Grain Yield Loss** & **Potential Grain Yield Loss** \\
**Regionalization of China** & **(10\({}^{4}\) ha)** & **(10\({}^{4}\) t)** & **Caused by Cultivated** \\  & & & **Land Abandonment (10\({}^{4}\) t)** \\ \hline The Northeast Region & 103.67 & 555.96 & 4829.45 \\ The regions along the Inner Mongolia and & 173.71 & 629.45 & 2959.11 \\ the Great Wall & 70.24 & 478.87 & 3035.02 \\ The Luong-huai-hai Region & 163.62 & 860.27 & 3843.87 \\ The middle and lower reaches of the & 121.32 & 544.71 & 6002.14 \\ Yangtze River & 123.85 & 362.94 & 3100.21 \\ The Southwest Region & 67.79 & 299.2 & 1015.88 \\ The Gansu-Xinjiang Region & 68.35 & 294.54 & 653.76 \\ The Qinghai-Tibet Region & 17.54 & 64.36 & 6.06 \\ \hline \hline \end{tabular}
\end{table} 
Table 3: Impacts of cultivated land abandonment on grain yield capacity in different agricultural regions. phenomenon of cultivated land abandonment, which seriously restricts the intensive use of cultivated land in China. Cultivated land abandonment, as an important phenomenon in the change of cultivated land in China, is influenced by multiple driving factors. It is not only related to the basic conditions of cultivated land but also linked to the level of economic development and the land use system [52; 53; 54; 55; 56; 57]. However, due to the complexity and extent of the interactions between different influencing factors, cultivated land in different areas responds differently to abandonment influencing factors, showing significant spatial differentiation characteristics [58]. In the southeastern coastal areas, where the contradiction between humans and the land is prominent and the macro-economic environment is constantly changing, the low agricultural income and the transfer of the rural labor force have become common phenomena in rural areas, and the abandonment of cultivated land has become an inevitable trend. Moreover, the Chinese current household contract responsibility system, to some extent, has restrained the free conversion of cultivated land, so farmers prefer to abandoned cultivated land to ensure their rights to and interest in the land, which has become the main reason for the serious phenomenon of cultivated land abandonment in the central region of China. Thus, it can be seen that under the market economy system, the abandonment of cultivated land is driven not only by social effects due to the dual structure of urban and rural areas but also by the rational choice of farmers under the overall balance of the national policy, cultivated land income, and opportunity cost under the framework of urbanization. Large-scale cultivated land abandonment not only causes serious waste of cultivated land resources but also has a profound impact on food security and the ecological environment [59; 60]. Based on the area of abandonment in 2017, this paper calculates that the loss of grain due to the abandonment is 40.89 million tons, accounting for 6.62% of the total grain output. Against the backdrop of the growing population, the increasing tendency of per capita grain, which is difficult to maintain, and the rapid development of urbanization, the abandonment of cultivated land has undoubtedly increased the pressure on China's agricultural production. However, the ecological effect of cultivated land abandonment is still controversial. Some perspectives hold that the abandonment of cultivated land is a threat to the natural habitat, and the seminatural habitat in some areas has a high value for natural protection, so agricultural production should be maintained [61; 62; 63; 64; 65; 66].