Since the reform and opening up, a large proportion of the Chinese rural labor force has transferred to urban and non-agricultural industries. Rural labor transfer not only changes the allocation of household labor in agricultural and non-agricultural sectors but also affects the utilization of other agricultural production factors. Based on data from 818 households in three counties in northern Jiangsu province, this paper analyzed the impact of labor migration on farmers’ adoption of cultivated land quality protection (CLQP) behaviors. The survey results showed that farmers’ awareness of CLQP was still very weak, and the proportion of farmers adopting measures such as subsoiling, straw application, cover crops and green manures and the complementary use of organic fertilizers was still relatively low. The empirical results showed that perennial out-migration for work can constrain households’ protective inputs into soil conservation, but part-time farming locally can promote households’ inputs. The results also showed that farmer characteristics, farming conditions and external environment also significantly affected the farmers’ adoption of soil conservation practices. According to these conclusions, this paper puts forward the corresponding policy implications.

This article describes China’s entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO) as a quasi-natural experiment based on samples from the World Bank database, China Customs database, and China Industrial Enterprise Database from 2000 to 2007 and uses the difference-in-difference (DID) method to investigate the effect of trade policy uncertainty (TPU) on China’s agricultural exports. The study found that, first, a decline in TPU significantly increases the export volume of Chinese agricultural firms. Second, the decline in TPU significantly boosts companies engaged in general trade. Regarding export destination countries, the decline in TPU significantly promotes the agricultural firms whose export destination countries are developing countries. Regarding firms’ ownership, the promotion of agricultural exports by non-state-owned enterprises (non-SOEs) and Hong Kong-, Macao- and Taiwan-funded enterprises is even more pronounced. Third, the decline in TPU promotes the export of Chinese agricultural firms by alleviating their financing constraints. The study provides new explanations for changes in China’s agricultural exports and enriches research on the evaluation of TPU effects.