Rural Labor Migration and Fertilizer Use: The Role of Migration Distance and Agricultural Transformation

ABSTRACT Fertilizer application intensity (FAI) is a key factor affecting the ecological security of cultivated land and agricultural green transformation. Rapid urbanization has accelerated rural labor transition (RLT) and reshaped the allocation of agricultural production factors, potentially affecting fertilizer application practices. However, the RLT–FAI relationship and its underlying mechanisms remain insufficiently understood from an urban–rural development perspective. To address this gap, this study uses county‐level panel data from Hubei Province, China, for 2008–2018 and applies a two‐way fixed‐effects model and mediation analysis. During the study period, rural labor migration increased, with most of the growth occurring within the province; FAI initially increased and then declined. The results show that associations vary by migration distance: intra‐county migration rates are positively associated with FAI, whereas inter‐county within‐province and inter‐provincial migration rates are negatively associated with FAI. Mediation analysis identifies three statistically significant indirect pathways: rural per capita disposable income is linked to FAI through cultivated land scale and mechanization level, while the share of cooperative members in the rural population, used as an institutional proxy for the cognitive effect, is linked to FAI through agricultural technology adoption. These findings provide empirical evidence from Hubei Province on the multidimensional RLT–FAI relationship and inform differentiated fertilizer‐reduction strategies that may contribute to agricultural green transformation.