The Role of Land Policy in Shaping Rural Development Outcomes

Dear Colleagues,

As the core institutional tool for rural development, land policy has a profound impact on the path to achieving agricultural modernization and food security. At present, rural areas globally are facing multiple structural contradictions: the aging population and land abandonment have led to a decline in agricultural production efficiency (especially in hilly and mountainous areas); the flow of urban and rural elements in the process of urbanization has made it difficult to fully release the value of rural land; the coordinated demand for farmland protection and ecological protection and restoration has intensified; and the global food supply chain has become more volatile.

From a historical perspective, land policy has always been a lever for rural reform, and agricultural and rural policy adjustments have always revolved around property rights’ allocation, business entity cultivation, and factor marketization. At present, global rural revitalization requires land policies to further adapt to the needs of modern agriculture. At the academic level, land policy research needs to break through the framework of traditional institutional economics, combine sociology, ecology, and technological innovation perspectives, and build a multidimensional evaluation system. For example, there is an urgent need to deepen both theoretical and empirical evidence regarding issues such as the protection effect of land rights’ confirmation in terms of farmers' rights and interests, the benefit distribution mechanism in land transfer, and the synergistic path of land consolidation and ecological restoration.

The goal of this Special Issue is to collate papers (original research articles and review papers) that provide insights into “The Role of Land Policy in Shaping Rural Development Outcomes”. Through interdisciplinary research, the role of land policy innovation in agricultural transformation, rural revitalization, and sustainable development is revealed. This Special Issue aims to achieve the following: Theoretical expansion: Starting from institutional economics, property rights theory, ecological economics, and other disciplines, a comprehensive framework for land policy research is constructed to respond to the need for theoretical explanations of emerging land use practices. Practice-oriented: Analyzing the practical obstacles to the implementation of land policies, study the role of land policies in the rural development process, and propose optimization paths. Global perspective: Combined with developed international experience, provide a comparative perspective for land policies in developing countries.

Topics of interest for this Special Issue include the following:

• Agricultural economy and land policy: explore the impact of land policy on agricultural production efficiency, farmers' income, and food security.
• Sustainable development: study the synergistic mechanism of farmland protection, land consolidation, ecological restoration, and intensive land use.
• Rural governance: analyze the role of land system reform in rural social stability and urban–rural integrated development.

We look forward to receiving your original research articles and reviews.

Dr. Hongwei Zhang
Dr. Enxiang Cai
Dr. Jie Zeng‬‬‬‬
Dr. Jilin Men
Guest Editors

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