Impacts of socio-economic policies on agriculture in the mountainous upland of the Dalinghe river watershed, Northeast China

Abstract

This study analyses the process of the impact of different policies on agricultural landscape changes and human-induced arable land changes in the Dalinghe river watershed from 1987 to 2002. It deploys categorical stepwise regression analysis method and principal component analysis to study arable land changes from the perspective of the interactions between policy changes and socioeconomic factors. The results were that the arable land change has mainly contributed to the changes of three factors: A-POP (agricultural population), T-POP (total population), and TIRE (total income of rural economy), as these parameters together explained 95.1% of the arable land change. A regression analysis suggests that rapid rural economic growth has a direct impact on the arable land change. At the same time, the study showed that the changes of agricultural pattern were mainly the result of the continuous implementation of the Household Responsibility System and Family Planning Policy, and the adoption of a market-directed economic system, as well as the execution of an integrated soil erosion control project and the conversion of sloping farmland into forest or pasture by farmer questionnaires. The changes in agricultural patterns facilitated both ecological and economic benefits.