Abstract
Rapeseed is an important oil product in China. China’s current soybean trade issues with major soybean producing countries have caused a large decline in soybean import since 2017. This may bring the increasing needs of rapeseed import, which would have an impact on domestic production. However, our knowledge on the effects of international rapeseed trade on domestic production remains unknown. It is thus important to understand the pattern of rapeseed in China under this scenario, as it may provide necessary information for all relevant stakeholders. With this goal, this study aims to investigate the spatial and temporal patterns of winter rape in China’s major winter rape production region, the Middle Reaches of the Yangtze River Valley (MYR), during 2003–2015 using time-series Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) data. A decision tree according to the difference in enhanced vegetation index (EVI) profiles of land-cover types was built to extract winter rape. The results show that there is an essential decrease in both the number and density of winter rape patches under the opening global rapeseed market. There are significant hotspots of winter rape gain and loss, within which the loss dominated the trend. The significant cost advantage of rapeseed in the international market may largely reduce the domestic cultivation in China through telecoupling effects. Understanding the spatio-temporal dynamics of winter rape on the MYR has significant economic and policy implications and can provide great supports for the agricultural production, policy-making, and oil products trade in the international market.
Highlights
Rapeseed is a major source of vegetable oil all over the world [1], as well as an important oil crop in China
The winter rape pixels in these two sources have good spatial agreement
This study showed that there was an obvious shrinkage of winter rape planting areas on the MYR, some regions gained area
Summary
Rapeseed is a major source of vegetable oil all over the world [1], as well as an important oil crop in China. Winter rape is mainly concentrated in the Yangtze River Valley [2], taking up over 90% of the rapeseed share in China. Rapeseed and soybean are substitutes for each other when being used as vegetable oil. Rapeseed oil used to rank first in China’s cooking oil market, it has been replaced by soybean oil since 2003 [2]. After joining the World Trade Organization (WTO), China’s soybean market has been deeply integrated into the global market. Soybean import has a serious impact on domestic soybean production in China owing to low tariffs on import and decreasing comparative benefit of soybean planting [3,4,5]. China’s soybean imports accounted for 41% of the world
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