: In recent years Chinese rapeseed production has undergone significant changes. In order to explain this evolution, this article focuses on analyzing gross margin ratios and labour cost for rapeseed and wheat which is found to be the major competing crop from a grower’s perspective. An econometric model applied to economic data from four main Chinese rapeseed producing provinces provides limited evidence that farm level economics play a role in grower’s decision making: an increase in the gross margin ratio by 1 % causes the share of rapeseed acreage in the subsequent year to go up by 0.09 %; a 1 % increase in the relative labour input leads to a reduction in rapeseed acreage by 0.45%. However, results also indicate that grower’s decision making regarding cropping pattern is driven by other non-economic factors as well.