Grassland, as one of the largest ecosystems on the earth, supports various goods and services to humanity. Historically, humans have increased agricultural output primarily by cropland expansion and agricultural intensification. The cropland area was primarily gained at the expense of grassland and forests. Apart from grassland conversion, increasing consumption of calorie- and meat-intensive diets drives the intensification of livestock systems, which is shifting steadily from grazing to feeding with crops.

Soil fertility management (SFM) has important implications for sustaining agricultural development and food self-sufficiency. Better understanding the determinants of farmers’ SFM can be a great help to the adoption of effective SFM practices. Based on a dataset of 315 plots collected from a typical rice growing area of South China, this study applied statistical method and econometric models to examine the impacts of land characteristics on farmers’ SFM practices at plot scale. Main results showed that in general land characteristics affected SFM behaviors.

North China is the most important food basket of China, where the majority of wheat and corn are produced. Most crops grown in North China are irrigated, thus water security is food security. Since the 1980s, drying has been frequently observed, as shown by a reduction in precipitation, cutoff in riverflow, and shrinkage of lakes. This increase in drying cannot be explained by climate change alone. We propose that intensive land-use in this area in recent decades has had a significant impact.