| Farmers,as minor action bodies in the activities of the agricultural economy,is the most grassroots policy makers of land use and the land use change is influenced directly by their behavior and means of land use.Therefore,it can help the governmental leaders make land-managing polices more by studying the issue of land use On the micro level.Livelihood,the human way of earning a living and the main behavioral way of farmers',is based on people's ability,assets and activities,which determining the relationship.between individuals and geographical environment Livelihoods assets,whose structure and features decide the choices of farmers' living ways and possible strategies adopting in the land use,are the parts of farmers' living structure,and they ultimately affect the ways of their land use.Therefore,it is of great theoretical and realistic significance to study the influences of land use change on the sustainable livelihood and land use for farmers from the perspective of farmers' livelihood assets.It is known that in the past many unreasonable activities such as excessive development of farmland existed in poor mountainous areas with a low level of economic development and fragile ecological environment in western China.They were caused by many reasons,such as the lack of enough awareness of the ecological environment protection,single way of farmers' living,focusing on the short-term benefits,the tough contradiction between human and land.Also a series of environmental problems like soil erosion,destructions to the ecological environment and land degradation were caused.It will help ease the degree of environmental degradation by optimizing the assets structure of farmers' livelihood,promoting the diversification of farmers' livelihood,changing the ways of peasant household land use in the western mountainous areas.Therefore,in this study with the sustainable livelihoods analysis framework being adopted the city of Zunyi(a mountainous area in western China with tough contradiction between human and land and serious soil erosion)is taken for example to make systematic researches on the influences of farmers' livelihood assets on the way of land use.And among it a lot of analytical methods concerning Statistics,Behavioristics and Econometrics are used to analyze the results of the questionnaires.In this research the main contents are included.(1)The mechanism of action of the farmers' livelihood assets in land use in a theoretical analysis framework is built.Based on the sustainable livelihood analytical framework,a framework of"livelihood.assets—land use"is to be build through comprehensive analysis of the process of various natural,political,and economic background differences-such as differences of livelihood assets,livelihood strategies and land use,then the mechanism will be revealed.(2)Comprehensive evaluation of farmers' livelihood assets in the chosen areas is made.First,with the research results we do have at home and abroad and the analysis of specific situation of the western mountainous areas the term livelihood assets is defined;secondly,through the quantitative researches of livelihood assets by related experts' and scholars' at home and abroad,a quantitative.evaluation index system of farmers'livelihood assets is build,which is based on the concrete natural resource endowment,cultural customs,ecological environment,religious belief,etc.Finally,farmers are classified according to their livelihood strategies and their livelihood assets are evaluated fully with an evaluation index system.(3)The effects of farmers' livelihood assets on livelihood strategies are explored.First,the mechanism of the farmers' livelihood assets with strategies is analyzed,and then with the evaluated results from the classification of farmers'livelihood strategies in the chosen areas and their livelihood assets,a Multivariate Logit Model is adopted to analyze the effects of farmers'livelihood strategies caused by various livelihood assets and then the corresponding conclusions and policy implications are drawn.(4)The effects of farmers' livelihood assets on ways of land use are studied.First,the mechanism of action is analyzed;then on the base of support that the current ways of land use for farmers with different livelihood strategies and evaluated results of their livelihood assets are given,a Multivariate Logit Model is adopted to analyze the effects of farmers' ways of land use caused by their livelihood assets.(5)The effects of farmers' livelihood assets on the degree of land use intensity are explored.Firstly,the mechanism of action of farmers livelihood assets o the degree of land use intensity;Secondly,a model is established to measure the degree of land use intensity for different farmers with different livelihood strategies;Finally estimation methods of OLS and quantile regression are employed to analyze the influence of livelihood assets for farmers with different livelihood strategies on the degree of land use intensity.(6)The effects of farmers'livelihood assets on the efficiency of land use are explored.Firstly,the mechanism of farmers'livelihood assets on the efficiency of land use is analyzed,then with the survey data and the evaluated results of farmers'livelihood assets for farmers with different livelihood strategies in the areas of the research the efficiency of land use for farmers with livelihood strategies is measured by a DEA model;Finally the impact of farmers'livelihood assets for farmers with livelihood strategies is analyzed by using OLS regression method and the quantile regression method put forward by Koenker and Bassett(1978).In view of the researches of the above contents,the following conclusions are drawn.(1)There are different comprehensive evaluated results of the livelihood assets for farmers with different livelihood strategies in the research area.?There are few differences between the total values of livelihood assets for farmers with different livelihood strategies,but different components of livelihood assets exist.?Pure agricultural households own more natural assets and physical assets,and those assets are beneficial to their being engaged in traditional agriculture production,but they have few human assets,financial assets and social assets,which is not conducive to their modern agricultural production.?Non-agricultural households and households with combined occupations have more human assets,financial assets and social assets,and they are beneficial to the diversification of their livelihood strategies,but due to their lack of natural assets and physical assets,they are unfavorable to their being modern agricultural production operators by going back to their home to start businesses.(2)Farmers' livelihood assets don' t affect their livelihood strategies in the same ways.?The natural assets and physical assets affect the choices of farmers' livelihood strategies in a significant negative way.The more natural assets and physical assets the farmers have,the more chances they have livelihood strategies to engage in agricultural production.?Human assets and financial assets affect the choices of farmers'livelihood strategies in a significant positive way.The more human assets and financial assets the farmers have,the more chances they have livelihood strategies to engage in nonagricultural production.?Social assets have no significant effects.(3)Farmers' livelihood assets affect their ways of land use in different ways.?As for the components of the farmers' land-planting,Pure agricultural households own more diverse ways.Though most farmers engage in planting traditional grain crops,a lot of farmers choose crops planting and industrial crops planting.No one has transfered their land or deserted them.But for non-agricultural households and households with combined occupations,most land are transfered or deserted.?Due to the different character and components of the livelihood assets,the different kinds of land crop planting are chosen for farmers with different livelihood strategies.Farmers who own more natural capital and physical assets tend to plant the traditional grain crops or mixed cultivation of grain and economic crops,but Farmers with more human assets,financial assets and social assets tend to choose economic crops or have their land transfered or deserted.?Livelihood assets for different farmers with livelihood strategies influence their ways of land use differently.Natural assets,physical assets and social assets affect the ways of land use for all the farmers.And human assets and financial assets just affect the ways of land use for households with combined occupations and non-agricultural households greatly.?Livelihood assets affect the ways of land use for farmers in many ways.Grain crops and economical crops are planted because of the social assets for the farmers.Physical assets and social assets affect that of households with combined occupations.And the non-agricultural households are influenced by the natural assets,physical assets,financial assets and social assets.Also,the farmers who have different livelihood assets plant different grain.crops and economical crops Farmers are influenced by the natural and physicalassets.The households with combined occupations are affected by the natural assets.But the livelihood assets influence the non-agricultural households on a very small scale.The assets do not influence the non-agricultural households because they have no land to be transferred or deserted at all.The assets that affect the choices of transferring or deserting land for the households with combined occupations are natural assets,physical assets,financial assets and social assets,but physical assets for the non-agricultural households.(4)Farmers' livelihood assets affect the degrees of land use intensity differently.?There are differences among the degrees of land use intensity for the farmers who own different livelihood strategies.The capital intensity of land use are higher than the intensity of labor for them.The households with combined occupations are ranked the first highest as for the capital intensity of land use and the intensity of labor,the pure agricultural households the second,and the non-agricultural households the lowest.?The degrees of land use intensity are affected by the farmers' livelihood assets greatly.The livelihood assets affecting the degree of land use intensity for the pure agricultural households are natural assets,physical assets,financial assets and social assets.The main assets affecting the households with combined occupations are natural assets,human assets,and financial assets.And those affecting the non-agricultural households are natural assets,human assets and social assets.(5)Farmers' livelihood assets affect the efficiency of the land use in quite different ways.? The comprehensive technical efficiencies of all the households with different livelihood strategies are not high but there are great differences.That of the pure agricultural households is the highest,the households with combined occupations the second highest,and non-agricultural households the lowest.That means that with the growing degrees of engaging in combined occupations,the efficiency of the land use tend to be lowered.?The efficiency distribution of the land use for households with different livelihood strategies vary considerably.For the pure agricultural households the comprehensive technical efficiency is mainly distributed in the range of high efficiency of 0.5?0.8,and those of the households with combined occupations and non-agricultural households are mainly distributed in the range of low efficiency.The pure technical efficiency of the pure agricultural households is mainly distributed in the range of medium efficiency,the households with combined occupations in the range of low efficiency,but that of the non-agricultural households is mainly distributed in the range of high efficiency.And the scale efficiency of the pure agricultural households and that of the households with combined occupations are mainly distributed in the range of high efficiency,but that of the non-agricultural households is mainly distributed in the range of low efficiency.? The different efficiencies of land use are mainly caused by the different scale efficiencies of land.With the growing land management,the efficiencies of land use tend to be higher and higher.? The comprehensive technical efficiencies of land use are influenced by the different livelihood assets for the households respectively.The pure agricultural households are affected by the human assets,physical assets and social assets.The households with combined occupations are affected by the natural assets,human assets,physical assets and social assets.And as the only form of assets influencing that of non-agricultural households,the natural assets affect it in a negative way.? The pure technical efficiencies of land use are affected by the different assets for households with different livelihood strategies.The human assets,physical assets and social assets affect that of the pure agricultural households,that for the households with combined occupations are affected by the natural assets,physical assets and financial assets.And for the non-agricultural households they are physical assets and financial assets.?There are differences between livelihood assets on the effects of land use scale efficiency for the farmers with different livelihood strategies.Those assets influencing the efficiency of farmers who just earn lives on land are the human assets,physical assets,financial assets and social assets.The assets affecting that of households with combined occupations are human assets,physical assets and financial assets.And natural assets,physical assets and financial assets influence that of the non-farmers.In a word,it can be concluded that the livelihood assets are the basis of farmers'living structure with the farmers'livelihood strategies selection and land use decisions being decided by their structure and features,and so ultimately affect the farmers' ways of land use through the research.With the conclusions mentioned above,some suggestions are put forward from the perspectives of improving farmers'livelihood assets structure as follows:(1)encourage the land circulation,increase farmers'natural assets.(2)strengthen the training degrees of farmers',increase their human assets.(3)improve agricultural infrastructure,increase farmers'material assets.(4)strengthen the financial support,increase farmers' financial assets.(5)rebuild social relation network,increase farmers' social assets. |
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