Growing Under the Green Great Wall: Agricultural Impacts of the People’s Republic of China’s Three-North Shelterbelt Program

Ecological restoration has become an increasingly important development policy instrument for reshaping rural labor allocation, supporting capital deepening, and sustaining agricultural productivity under tightening environmental constraints. Yet evidence on whether such large-scale restoration initiatives can jointly deliver environmental and economic benefits remains limited. This paper evaluates these impacts using the People’s Republic of China’s Three-North Shelterbelt Program, one of the world’s largest nature-based interventions, as a long-run setting. We find that villages initially most exposed to sandstorms experienced the largest reductions in storm severity and frequency. Beyond these environmental improvements, the program generated substantial economic gains by revitalizing agricultural production: Improved land conditions increased rural households’ willingness to remain in farming, stimulated investment in productive fixed assets, and significantly enhanced agricultural total factor productivity. Together, these results highlight the dual role of ecological restoration in promoting environmental sustainability and reinforcing rural economic resilience, offering insights for the design of large-scale conservation policies.