Survey data on livelihood assets, activities and outcomes of smallholder farm households in China's Loess Plateau

Qirui Li

doi:10.1016/j.dib.2021.107638

Abstract

Smallholders’ decisions on land use and their activities and strategies of livelihoods are the critical source of uncertainty in natural resource use and an essential determinant of sustainability challenges. This data article provides a selection of quantitative data from a questionnaire survey on livelihood assets, activities and outcomes of smallholder farm households in Yan'he Township, which lies in the middle part of China's Loess Plateau, one of the representative Grain for Green Project areas [1]. Data include land-use decisions and agronomic practices, fertilisation, use of pesticides, machine and irrigation, farm and non-farm activities, financial performance, and the levels of household income, wellness, and total consumption of food, energy, and education and health care. The survey also covered geographical, demographic and socioeconomic background information on the respondents and their perceptions, incentives, propensities and subjective wellbeing. The survey has supported a couple of research articles that build indicators and indexes for economic, environmental and socio-cultural sustainability dimensions and the resilience building of coupled social-ecological systems. The data presented in this article were analysed using descriptive and inferential statistics and provided at the Mendeley Repository. The data will assist studies on the interrelationships of smallholder livelihoods, ecosystem conservation, interventionist policy and market support, and community capacity building in sustainability science.

Highlights

Survey data on livelihood assets, activities and outcomes of smallholder farm households in China’s Loess Plateau
Smallholders’ decisions on land use and their activities and strategies of livelihoods are the critical source of uncertainty in natural resource use and an essential determinant of sustainability challenges
This data article provides a selection of quantitative data from a questionnaire survey on livelihood assets, activities and outcomes of smallholder farm households in Yan’he Township, which lies in the middle part of China’s Loess Plateau, one of the representative Grain for Green Project areas [1]

Summary

Data accessibility

Agricultural Sciences Agricultural Economics Primary data, Tables, Images Questionnaire survey Raw, Analysed, Filtered (descriptive and inferential statistics) The survey data contain 247 households in China’s Loess Plateau. The data will be helpful for researchers who would like to investigate local livelihoods, individual decision making, the effect of PES, feedback of human behaviour to ecosystem and policy interventions, and the transformation approaches towards sustainability in drylands. The data will be valuable to examine human behaviour and decision-making at the farm household level in response to policy interventions and changes in environmental and socioeconomic conditions, perform the impact assessment of land-use change, and conduct studies on resilience building and sustainability assessments. In terms of policymaking and planning, key factors can be extracted to design farm management, community-based strategies and capacity building, and policy interventions and market support relevant to local agricultural production, food security, availability and consumption of ecosystem services, ecological conservation, rural infrastructure, social welfare and human capital, among others

Data Description

Questionnaire development and survey sampling

Methods of data analysis

Declaration of Competing Interest