Empirical analysis of the relationship between farmland transfer-out and poverty alleviation in poverty areas of China

Abstract Farmland transfer-out is essentially a process of the rural land resource allocation, and it is also of great importance to farmers’ poverty alleviation. The practice of farmland transfer-out in China is generally manifested as farmland expropriation and farmland lease. Based on the survey data of 832 poverty counties in China, this paper empirically analyzed the effects of farmland lease and expropriation on poverty alleviation. The results showed that farmland expropriation and lease in poverty areas could increase farmers’ household income and poverty alleviation, and this conclusion was still valid after instrumental variable estimation and robustness test. Moreover, farmland expropriation significantly promoted the growth of entrepreneurship income and the decrease of farm income, but did not significantly impact non-farm income. However, farmland lease significantly promoted the growth of entrepreneurial income and non-farm income, but was negatively correlated with farm income. It should be noted that farmers’ entrepreneurship strengthened the positive role of farmland expropriation on poverty alleviation, while it did not play a significant role in the relationship between farmland lease and poverty alleviation. Further research showed that the farmland expropriation and lease in poverty areas improved individual well-being through poverty alleviation, and the farmers’ entrepreneurship in poverty areas strengthened this positive effect. This study provides empirical evidence for farmers in poverty areas to achieve poverty alleviation and improve individual subjective well-being through farmland transfer-out.