From 1962 to 2013, the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC’s) agricultural employment share declined from 82% to 31%. The transfer of workers out of low-productivity agriculture is a fundamental pillar of the PRC’s aspirations to progress and eventually become a high-income economy. We hypothesize that the drivers of this decline have been the increase in income per capita, industrial value added...

Abstract Biodiversity and abundance of wildlife has dramatically declined in agricultural landscapes. Sown, short‐lived wildflower (WF) strips along the margins crop fields are a widespread often subsidised agri‐environmental schemes, intended to enhance biodiversity, provide refuges for wild plant arthropod populations ecosystem services crops. Meanwhile, WF elements also criticised, since the...

Land-use policies, especially in tropical zones, are frequently seen as facing three insoluble problems: (1) low or inefficient agricultural production, which leads to (2) clearing of natural habitat for more farmland, which leads to (3) loss of biodiversity (Ausebel 1996; Glokany 1998; Trewavas 2001). The solution to this three-part dilemma is often seen by going backward, so to speak (1) loss...