Abstract: Cropland transfer is crucial in dealing with the contradiction between agricultural modernization with rural household contract responsibility system.It may overcome the disadvantages of Chinese traditional system of land equalization and boost the sustainable use of cropland.With the nonfarm process of rural households’livelihood, many migrating households tend to transfer their cropland out.And those rural households with lower migrating labor rate may engage in large-scale agricultural production.Therefore,understanding the impact of rural households’nonfarm employment on cropland transfer is essential to clarify the driving forces of cropland transfer.In the article,the impact of rural households’nonfarm employment on cropland transfer was systematically analyzed in rural and environmentally fragile areas in Changting County of Fujian Province,based on the survey of 358 households in 6 villages.The logistic regressive model was established to examine the impact of rural households’nonfarm employment on cropland transfer.The independent variables of the logistic regressive model included: number of household agricultural labors,average age of household agricultural labors,cropland area per capita,the proportion of income from managing cropland to total household income per year,and proportion of employees at non-agriculture to total labors.The results indicated that rural households’nonfarm employment remarkably promoted the cropland transfer out.The relationship between rural households’nonfarm employment and cropland transfer was a positive feedback relationship.The agricultural labor scarcity and agricultural labor opportunity costs resulted from out-migration and local off-farm employment were the primary cause of the cropland transfer out.Moreover,nonfarm employment as a whole impeded cropland transfer in.In detail,agricultural labor opportunity costs hindered the cropland transfer in,while the decrease of land rent promoted the cropland transfer in to some extent.Finally,conclusions and policy enlightenment were summarized.The conclusions contained three parts.Firstly,the relationship between rural livelihood nonfarm trend and cropland transfer out was a positive feedback other than a simple one-way linear relation.Secondly,agricultural labor scarcity and agricultural labor opportunity costs resulted from rural nonfarm employment was the most important cause of cropland transfer out.In addition,the higher opportunity costs and decreasing cropland rent were key factors of cropland transfer in.Therefore,in order to promote cropland transfer and sustainable management,some measures should be taken such as accelerating rural labor forces transfer into non-agriculture,boosting the cropland centralization and large-scale management, increasing overall support for large-scale agriculture,and optimizing the management of cropland transfer.