The Study On Farmer's Drinking Water, Road, Food Security In Poor Mountainous Areas In The Southwest Of China

With largest population in the world, China has stressed on making sure of food security as an overwhelming strategy in national economic and social development. And most researches on food security in China so far have focused on sufficiency of food supply from the macro-level perspective, especially grain supply. However, the realization of national food security does not mean that of individual's, and it is true even in developed countries such as U.S.. Individual's limited capacity of acquiring food may lead to food insecurity at the micro level. Currently, overall food security in China has been basically guarantteed, but its realization on different groups of population varies greatly. A large number of the poor in China still suffer from mulnutrition. At the household level, income is one of the key factors affecting their ability to obtain food. Impoverished people in China are mainly distributed in southwestern, northwestern and some outlying mountainous areas in central China with scarce resources, deteriorated ecosystem and inferior infrastructure. The unfavorable conditions for production and living have become a stubborn obstacle for rural households to generate income. In order to strengthen their capability of accessing to food, it is key to enable them with more opportunities and ameliorated capabiliy of increasing income by improving infrastructure and hereafter bettering their producing and living environment.Based on descriptions of the current situations of impoverished farmers'food security in southwestern mountainous area of China, this study aims to analyze how seasonal drinking water shortage and traffic conditions influence farmers'ability to obtain food, and propose policy recommendations to strengthen farmers'food security. The thesis contains the following three parts:The first part analyzes the impact of seasonal drinking water shortage and traffic conditions on farmers'ability to obatin food in southwestern mountainous areas of China. This part analyzes the impact of traffic conditions on the dietary diversity, and estimates the marginal effect of the improvement of seasonal drinking water shortage on farmer's income generation and intake of nutrition with difference-in-difference estimation. The results show that seasonal drinking water shortage not only reduces farmers'opportunities of migration work and thereafter decrease their off-farm income, but also affacts agricultural production negatively. Moreover, convenient roads are able to enhance farmer'access to food market, and increase their food diversity significantly.The second part analyzes farmers'intake of principal nutrition and trace elements in impoverished southwestern mountainous areas of China. By applying the classic method of nutritional analysis and desirable dietary pattern scoring scheme formulated by Chinese Academy of Preventive Medicine, this part compares the nutrition level of farmers with different income levels to reveal the nutrition situation in impoverished southwestern mountainous areas. The results suggest that diverty of food as well as intakes of energy and fat firstly increase with the growth of householod net income, and then decrease afterwards when household net income reaches certain point, which conforms to the implications of the Engel's Law. Moreover, desirable dietary pattern (DDP) scores and intake of protein follow the growth of income in a linearized way, and have not arrived at the turning point predicted by the Engal's Law, after which they will decrease with the growth of income. In a word, the intake of protein is pervasivly insufficient, while these of fat and trace elments are comparatively adequate. Farmers have conquered the problem of food and clothing, but their dietary structure need further improvement.The last part analyzes the impact of farmers'intake of nutrition on their height and weight. This part compares height and weight of sample farmers with the results of relative researches, and investigates the relationship between nutrition conditions and their Body Mass Index (BMI) scores. The results show that farmers'intakes of energy, protein and fat are all within the same culmulative scope, without closely related with their BMI scores. Currently, farmers'BMI scores are significantly correlated with gender, age and genetic factors, while having little to do with their nutrition conditions measured by DDP scores and intakes of fat, protein and energy.