A study of 856 Chinese rural households found that farms practicing circular agriculture (recycling waste, reusing byproducts, cutting input costs) saw household livelihoods improve nearly 17% compared to similar farms that didn't, with the biggest gains going to smaller, less-established farms.
1
Engaging in circular agriculture raised household livelihood outcomes by an average treatment effect of 0.078, a 16.8% increase over the counterfactual mean.
2
Income diversification explained 25.6% of the benefit, while resource efficiency (input cost savings) explained 17.9%.
3
Larger farms (ATT=0.098), more educated households (ATT=0.094), and eastern-province farms (ATT=0.089) gained more, but households with lower initial livelihood levels benefited most, pointing to an equalizing effect.
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