Assessing the sustainability of agriculture in Beijing based on the biological capacity theory

Abstract

Agriculture is the foundation industry of the national economy. The sustainable development of agriculture and rural social economy is the fundamental guaranty and priority field in the national development. However, the primary problem is how to assess the sustainable development capacity of agriculture and country. In many evaluation methods of the sustainable development, ecological footprint model is attended and applied widely, because it has such advantages as intuitive, comprehensiveness and so on. This paper calculated the ecological footprint and ecological carrying capacity of all countries in Beijing in 2010, with the ecological footprint model, using the statistic data from Beijing statistics yearbook 2011. Through the study on the historic transformation of the ecological footprint and ecological carrying capacity, this paper assessed the sustainable development capacity of agriculture and country in Beijing, found the main factors that limited the agricultural and rural sustainable development in Beijing, in order to provide helpful advances for the agricultural policy-making.