Abstract: After young generation moved away from rural areas to big cities for more job opportunities, those left in rural areas the old, children, and women, who were not able to utilize all the available lands to grow crops because of their physical constrains. A massive crop lands were unplanted. In addition, their limited literacy level cannot meet the urgent requirement for the sustainable development of modern agriculture. Empty nest villages had far-reaching impacts on the sustainable development of modern agriculture. Strengthening the governance of empty nest village plays a critical role in the sustainable development of modern agriculture. The analysis of selected empty nest villages of 5 counties in Hunan Province shows that empty nest villages deeply restricted the sustainable development of modern agriculture. In order to realize the sustainable development of modern agriculture, some measures must be taken, including strengthening the management of village leaders, prohibiting village leaders moving out, paying attention to the rural education, cultivating new farmers, improving the organization degree of farmers, vigorously implementing the superiority projects, strengthening the agricultural machine development, promoting new agricultural technology transformation, adjusting the industrial structure, increasing employment opportunities, vigorously developing ecological agriculture, exploring ecological agriculture mode, increasing capital investment, improving rural infrastructure, reforming the land policy, and realizing land capitalizing effects.