Those with constant property rights have perseverance: China’s land tenure reform promotes environment-friendly farming practices

Few studies have used large-scale household-level panel data to quantify the impact of land tenure reform on environment-friendly farming practices from a chemical fertiliser reduction perspective. This study attempts to fill this gap by exploring the relationship between land certification and farmers’ chemical fertiliser use. It employs nationally representative panel data from the Chinese Family Database and a propensity score matching and difference-in-difference approach. The results show that land certification significantly reduces the usage of chemical fertilisers, mainly by increasing long-term investment, promoting land renting, and inhibiting off-farm employment. This effect varies greatly between farmers with and without land certification experience before the new round of land certification, although no significant difference exists based on whether farmers have previous land adjustment experience. Furthermore, land certification also helps increase the probability of straw recycling and farm manure use. Accordingly, developing countries can combine land tenure reform with environment-friendly farming practices. Through large-scale land certification reforms, and the continuous enhancement of land tenure security, a solid foundation for a land tenure system for sustainable agricultural development can be established.