Policy distortions, farm size, and the overuse of agricultural chemicals in China

TLDR

In China, the overuse of agricultural chemicals severely harms environmental quality and human health, and unlike other countries where farm size grows with development, Chinese farm size remains small due to national policies, making optimal chemical use a key sustainability challenge. The study proposes that eliminating policy distortions to enlarge farm size would reduce chemical use, lower environmental impact, and raise rural incomes in China. The analysis shows that China’s very small farm parcels (~0.1 ha) are strongly linked to the overuse of agricultural chemicals.

Abstract

Significance Overuse of agricultural chemicals has resulted in enormous damages to environmental quality and human health in China. Reducing the use of agricultural chemicals to an optimal level is a crucial challenge for the sustainable development of agriculture. We demonstrate that small farm size (in China, typically ∼0.1 ha for each parcel) is strongly related to overuse of agricultural chemicals. Farm size increases with economic development in many other countries, but this is not observed in China due to national policies. Increasing farm size by removing policy distortions would substantially decrease both the use of agricultural chemicals and their environmental impact, while increasing rural income in China.