Livelihood Assets and Strategies among Rural Households: Comparative Analysis of Rice and Dryland Terrace Systems in China

Lun Yang,Qingwen Min,Fei Lun,Heyao Li,Moucheng Liu,Canqiang Zhang

doi:10.3390/su10072525

Abstract

The livelihood of peasant households is one of the selection criteria of Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems and a critical factor that affects agricultural heritage system conservation and inheritance. Taking the Honghe Hani Rice Terraces System (HHRTS) and Shexian Dryland Terraces System (SDTS) as examples, we investigated 304 households through a participatory rural appraisal method to discuss the livelihood assets and strategies of households in agricultural heritage systems. From the viewpoint of livelihood strategies, household strategies can be divided into pure agricultural, nonagricultural, and part-time agricultural strategies. The livelihood strategies of households in the HHRTS feature a higher proportion of nonagricultural, while those in the SDTS have a diverse distribution. With respect to livelihood assets, we constructed a livelihood assets accounting framework to highlight the important role of traditional culture and information technology in agricultural activities. The average livelihood assets value in the HHRTS and SDTS was 2.249 and 1.832, respectively. Then, applying the multinomial logit model, we quantitatively analyzed the relationship between livelihood assets and strategies. The results show that in both terrace systems, the understanding of traditional agricultural knowledge is important to suppress the shift of pure agricultural households to nonagricultural or part-time agricultural households. Therefore, in order to achieve dynamic conservation of terrace systems, it is necessary to effectively increase the cultural assets level of households, especially farmers’ understanding of traditional agricultural knowledge.

Highlights

In 2002, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations (UN) proposed the concept of Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems (GIAHS) with an emphasis on the need to ensure the dynamic conservation of these systems
The Honghe Hani Rice Terraces System (HHRTS) has the largest number of LS2 households, which means their livelihood strategies have a higher degree of nonagriculturization
The average annual agricultural income is 29,883 yuan, whereas the average annual nonagricultural income is 20,157 yuan. These findings demonstrate that nonagricultural income is the main income in the HHRTS, while agricultural income contributed the largest proportion of annual household income in the Shexian Dryland Terraces System (SDTS)

Summary

Introduction

In 2002, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations (UN) proposed the concept of Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems (GIAHS) with an emphasis on the need to ensure the dynamic conservation of these systems. As of the end of 2017, 50 traditional agricultural systems located in 20 countries worldwide had been placed on the GIAHS list, four of which are terrace systems in China, South Korea, and the Philippines [4]. Starting in 2012, China launched a similar national program, called the National Important Agricultural Heritage Systems of China (China-NIAHS). By the end of 2017, a total of 91 traditional agricultural systems had been ranked as China-NIAHS, including seven terrace systems [5]. As a key focus and important aspect of agricultural heritage systems (AHS), terraces are considered a typical upland agricultural ecosystem and constitute one of the most evident anthropogenic imprints on the landscape, covering a considerable part of the terrestrial landscape [6,7,8]

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