Effects Of Agricultural Labor Transfer On Land Use And Ecological In Karst Areas In Southwest China

The process of agricultural labor transfer,land use change and the ecological environment change is of vital importance in rural development evolution in developing countries.China is a typical country which has a large amount of people and limited arable land,leading to obvious contradiction between people and land.With the development of science and technology,agricultural production efficiency significantly improved,which caused a large number of rural surplus labor force,in accordance with the high demand for labor of rapid economic development.The surplus labor transferred from western to eastern regions,not only promoting the economic growth of immigrant areas,but also having important impacts on the land use and ecological environment of rural areas.The ecological environment in karst areas in Southwest China is fragile.Most of the arable land depend on rains for water and are susceptible to floods,droughts and other natural disasters,so the agricultural production stability is low.The arable land is less and broken in mountainous terrain,unable to achieve the scale-operation of agricultural production.Therefore,the comparative advantage of agricultural production is low,causing more and more farmers to leave the land and go out for work.Labor is the main element of agricultural production,as well as the main micro player in land use.The rural labor transfer directly resulted in changes in land use and ecological environment.In this paper,I selected a typical karst watershed which was the labor outflow rural area as a study object,and analyzed the relationship among agricultural labor transfer,land use change and ecological environment change from the perspective of farmers,revealing the effects of agricultural labor transfer on land use and the environment.17 villages were randomly chosen from karst cluster depressions,karst cluster valleys and flat areas in upstream,midstream and downstream,respectively in Houzhaihe Basin,Puding County,Guizhou Province.We interviewed the households randomly and collected 425 valid household questionnaire data,analyzing the current situation and the characteristics of the agricultural labor force.Combined with land use change data and related statistics data,using supervised classification method,ecological footprint and statistical analysis methods,the paper quantitatively studied the impacts of agricultural labor transfer on land use and the environment from a macro regional perspective and micro household perspective.The conclusions are as follows:(1)The large rural labor transfer began in around 2000.The percentage of rural labor in household in Houzhaihe Basin was about 30%.They transferred outside of Guizhou province to Southeast China,and 80.07%of the labor force worked for over 10 months in a year.Most of the farmers mainly were employed in the secondary industry and 85.68%of the farmers earned lower than 4000 yuan per month.Agricultural labor transfer was affected by external social environment and their own factors.Low agricultural income,labor surplus,children's education,building marriage houses are the most important "inner forces" to the agricultural labor transfer.(2)The rural labor force resulted in the reduction of cultivated land area,and the change of cultivated land structure.Farmland abandonment and transfer appeared among which 16%of farmers transferred their farmland and 4.47%of farmers abandoned their farmland.After labor transfer,the sown area of food crops decreased while the sown area of economic crops and vegetables increased by 52.32%and 243.32%,respectively.Farmers pursued to maximize their own interests and the output-input ratio.The multiple-crop index increased by 20.72%after labor transfer.(3)The land use change caused by labor transfer in Houzhaihe Basin improved the ecological environment.The forest area increased by 78.29%and the rocky desertification land area decreased by 83.84%.The proportion of dry land whose slope is above 6° Sloping decreased by 12.05%.Per capita ecological footprint decreased significantly with the massive agricultural labor transfer,further reducing the pressure on arable land.The agricultural labor transfer raised income and changed the life energy structure and livestock,lessening the dependence on environmental resources and reducing damage to the vegetation.Farmers abandoned traditional energy consumption structure dominated by firewood,and used electric energy and coal.Only 12.94%of the farmers used straw or firewood.After the labor transfer,it is difficult for the elderly and children at home to feed pigs,cattle and other livestock,so the number of breeding pigs and cattle reduced by 65.7%.Their food changed from grasses and straw to corn,greatly reducing the farmers' dependence on environmental resources,which is conducive to the overall ecological environment in the watershed.