Agricultural Population Supported in Rural Areas under Traditional Planting Mode Based on Opportunity Cost Analysis

The return of rural migrant workers through increasing agricultural income by expanding farming scale is significant for rural sustainable development without rural population loss. This paper selected six representative counties in Henan Province, China’s major grain-producing province, to conduct a questionnaire survey, investigated the incomes of farmers from farming and migrant workers, calculated moderate farming scale under different opportunity costs, and also estimated the agricultural population that can be supported by arable land resources. Results are as follows: (1) Under the traditional planting mode, annual per capita income of farmers in farming was USD 342.18, which was substantially lower than USD 5255.63 in migrant workers. This huge income gap has led to continuous rural population loss. (2) Under the opportunity cost of farming income equal to migrant workers income, moderate farming scales of the six selected counties were 1.39, 1.17, 1.22, 1.08, 1.34, and 1.01 ha, respectively. Under the 0.8x and 0.6x opportunity cost, corresponding moderate farming scales were 1.11, 0.94, 1.11, 0.86, 1.07, and 1.34 ha; and 0.84, 0.70, 0.73, 0.65, 0.80 and 1.01 ha, respectively. (3) On the basis of the three moderate farming scales and status quo of arable land resources, agricultural populations that can be supported by rural Henan Province were 8.0386 million, 10.0479 million and 13.3942 million, respectively. Findings can guide the formulation of rural revitalization strategic measures and the preparation of village territorial spatial planning.