Effects of land use transitions and rural aging on agricultural production in China's farming area: A perspective from changing labor employing quantity in the planting industry

Understanding the impact of rural aging on agricultural production is critical for implementing a comprehensive rural vitalization strategy in China. In this paper, the planting structure is converted into and measured by the amount of labor employing quantity in the planting industry with the 2000 and 2010 census data and crop planting area data at the county level. By establishing the elasticity coefficient of rural aging - labor quantity and taking the coupling relation between the rural aging and the change in crop production quantity in the Huang-Huai-Hai region into account, the spatio-temporal pattern of rural aging and the recessive transition of land use is analyzed. The results show that the aging level of the rural population in the Huang-Huai-Hai region has maintained an overall growth rate of 27.03% from 2000 to 2010. During the research period, the labor employing quantity in the planting industry decreased by 14.18% and, was mainly distributed among the western Shandong hilly region, the Taihang and Yanshan mountainous region, and the eastern part of the Huang-HuaiHai Plain agricultural region. The spatial coupling relationship between the rural aging and the changes in labor employing quantity in the planting industry presented diversified patterns. From 2000-2010, the number of counties with three different coupling modes, namely, rural aging increasing and labor employing quantity decreasing, increasing of rural aging and labor employing quantity, and decreasing of rural aging and labor employing quantity, account for 84.90%, 11.11%, and 3.7%, respectively. To achieve the goal of agricultural development, the authors argue that in the dual context of rural aging and population mobilization, agricultural development must cultivate new professional farmers and improve the level of agricultural modernization in China.