Evaluation Of Agriculture Sustainability In Hilly And Gully Region Of Loess Plateau

Sustainable development in agriculture is a comprehend system composed by agricultural economy, agricultural techniques, environment and resource, as well as rural society etc. The preconditions are to use water, land, biology, mineral resource and environment with protection. The methods are techniques and efficiency management. The goal is to keep agriculture stable and active, to fill the needs of human been to agricultural products finally.In the hilly and gully region of Loess Plateau, to reach sustainable development of agriculture is a heavy challenge, because of serious soil and water erosion and frail environment. In past 20 years, national and local governments have been trying to prompt the sustainable development in agriculture by experimenting and demonstrating sustainable agriculture. Sustainability evaluation is an important work for sustainable agriculture experiments to help analyze confinement factors and to forecast development trend. Based on research works of preceding researchers, sustainability evaluation model of agriculture in hilly and gully region of Loess Plateau was discussedConstituting evaluation indicators are the core task. According to the definition of sustainable agriculture by FAO, the 21 valuation indicators were divided into five groups, which were productivity, safety, economic activity, stables and social acceptability. Main confinement factors and lead goals of sustainable agriculture in the region were mainly considered, when indicators were selected. So, indicator number was limited in order to be calculated and used more easily.Founding evaluation model is another important task for sustainability evaluation. To calculate indicator weight and standardize indicator values are two necessary steps. In the thesis, analytic hierarchy process, principle components analysis and entropy method for weight calculation were introduced. Linear standardization, curve standardization and disjunction standardization were introduced.Agriculture sustainability in Zhifanggou watershed in Ansai County and in Mizhi County in Shaanxi Province was evaluated. Analytic hierarchy process and linear standardization method were used. The sustainability evaluation results of Zhifanggou in 1997 showed that comprehend management of small watershed improved environment and agriculture productivity significantly. Agricultural products became more stable. The main confinement factor was low economic activity. The evaluation results of Mizhi in 1998 and 2005 showed that local agriculture industry was developing toward sustainable, although sustainable level was low. The main confinement factors included poor natural condition, low product and low economic activity. Evaluation results of two samples showed that sustainability evaluation model of agriculture constituted in the thesis was suit for small watershed scale and county scale in the hilly and gully region of Loess Plateau. It can help to forecast development trend and analysis confinement factors.