Farmland transfer and esophageal cancer incidence rate: mediation of pollution-related agricultural input intensity

Abstract

Cancer is a growing global health threat. Examining the determinants of cancer incidence can benefit for cancer treatment and prevention. Farmland transfer relates to the risk factors of esophageal cancer including environmental pollution, services access, and habits. This study characterizes the associations between farmland transfer and esophageal cancer incidence rate (ECI) that integrate mediated effect of pollution-related agricultural input intensity in Xiaoshan District, China. The state-space model is employed to quantify the relationships among farmland transfer, pollution-related agricultural input intensity, and ECI. The results showed that (1) Total effects of the proportion of transferred farmland (TFA) area cause a reduction in the ECI. Besides, the total positive effects of the proportion of transferred farmland cultivated non-grain crop (NGC) and proportion of farmland transferred to non-farmer users (NFU) show a downward trend. (2) The raise of TFA can result in the reduction of chemical fertilizer use intensity. Meanwhile, the raise of NGC and NFU can result in the growth of pollution-related agricultural input intensity. But these increasing effects generally show a downward trend. (3) Increasing chemical fertilizer use intensity and pesticide use intensity results in the rise of esophageal cancer incidence rate as a whole. (4) In general, farmland transfer has positive direct effects on esophageal cancer incidence rate. (5) The average proportions of mediated effects in all state-space models are larger than 10%. These findings can raise land reform policy designers' awareness of the risk of public health since the land transfer markets are emerging rapidly in land reform in many developing countries to improve agricultural production.

Keywords: Agricultural input intensity; Agricultural pollution; China; Esophageal cancer; Farmland transfer; State-space model.