The Heterogeneous Effects of Multilevel Centers on Farmland Transfer: Evidence from Tai’an Prefecture, China

Land transfer is an important means to achieve agricultural scale production and improve land use efficiency, as well as an effective way to solve food security issues. Discussing the mechanism of how the multilevel urban centers affect rural farmland transfer can help understand the spatial heterogeneity characteristics of farmland transfer. It is helpful to provide more policy suggestions from the perspective of urban-rural spatial relations and achieve the goal of agricultural and rural modernization. Taking Tai&rsquo:an prefecture as an example, this study examines the impact of multilevel urban centers on farmland transfer by mediating effect model. The results show that: (1) Distances to urban centers are negatively associated with rural farmland transfer rates, with lower rates farther from urban centers. There are two mechanisms about how the distances to urban centers influence farmland transfer: the first is that the farther a village is from urban centers, the lower the value of its farmland, which leads to lower benefits to those who transferring farmland: the second is that lower opportunity costs of agricultural labor in the villages which farther from cities increase household reliance on farmland, reducing the rates of transferring farmland out. (2) Multilevel centers differentially influence transfers. The higher-level prefectural centers affect farmland transfer through planting structure, while the lower-level county centers affect farmland transfer through off-farm employment. Additionally, the influence of county centers is less stable due to road accessibility. (3) It is critical to additional policy support to both towns and remote villages. Particular focus should be placed on increasing the non-agricultural industries and expanding the agricultural markets of towns. It is also important to enhance infrastructure development to encourage farmland transfer in remote villages.