Abstract Zero rent transfer of land exists widely in rural areas with obvious characteristics of “acquaintance society” and “differential order pattern”. Based on the data of Chinese household financial survey in 2015, this paper examines the marginal impact of zero rent in land transfer on agricultural production efficiency and its possible mechanism. The results show that the zero rent transfer of land significantly reduces the land efficiency and labor efficiency of agricultural production and expands the part of technical inefficiency in agricultural production, especially for the loss of agricultural production efficiency caused by the transfer direction of ordinary farmers, the planting type of cash crops and the transfer households whose land lease term is too short or too long. And there are two specific action paths. One is “zero rent-insufficient investment in agricultural production-loss of agricultural production efficiency”, in which the crowding out effect of zero rent on long-term investment in agricultural production is significantly greater than that of short-term investment in agricultural production. The other is “zero rent-decline of willingness to protect cultivated land-loss of agricultural production efficiency”. Further research shows that agricultural technology guidance can alleviate the loss of agricultural production efficiency caused by zero rent. The confirmation of agricultural land ownership can not inhibit the phenomenon of zero rent in land transfer, but the intermediary service of land transfer can effectively reduce the behavior of farmers' land zero rent transfer. Therefore, local governments need to increase agricultural investment subsidies, speed up the promotion of agricultural technical guidance services, and actively build a unified and open, orderly and two-way rural land circulation market, in order to reduce the loss of agricultural production efficiency caused by land zero rent transfer.
2022, Vol. 39 
