Study On The Relationship Between Cotton Production And Land Degradation In Southern Xinjiang Based On Farmer Behavior

China’s cotton production layout has developed and formed Xinjiang area, Yangtze River area and Yellow River area in recent years’continuous adjustment. And since80s, cotton’s planting area of China is gradually transferring from south to north, to Xinjiang area-the north west of China. Xinjiang has unique geographic conditions with adequate sunlight, abundant heat resources, big day and night-time temperature differences, all of which are quite suitable for cotton growing. Xinjiang cotton area is a relatively new cotton planting region in China, which has experienced rapid development since the1990s and has now become the largest cotton production area in China. For a consecutive ten-year period, Xinjiang cotton was ranked first in China for cotton area, total production output, yield level, varieties and transfer of fiber to other regions. And to date, cotton planting has become one of the main leading crops industry, and the profitability of cotton is therefore particularly important to southern Xinjiang. It accounts of around40%of per capita net income of farmers, and in some particular area it ups to above75%. In2009, the total production output of cotton in Southern Xinjiang was109.75*104t, and the total cotton planting area63.50x104hm2,43.48%and45.05%respectively of total production output and planting area of Xinjiang. Southern Xinjiang has become the largest producing base of premium inland cotton in Xinjiang and the largest long-staple producing base in China.Although cotton planting has become one of the leading agricultural industries in Xinjiang, and the main source of farmers’income, the cotton production is not optimistic in Xinjiang, especially in southern Xinjiang. There are still many problems which makes the negative externalities increasingly evident in cotton production. Restricted by natural and historical conditions, the environmental carrying capacity of southern Xinjiang is very poor, thus the environment there is very fragile. If farmers’production behavior such as land investments, planting decisions, adaptation of new technologies cannot be properly managed, it will restrain the sustainable development of cotton production in certain degree, furthermore will cause difficulties in farmers’income increasing, and trigger a series of land degradation problems. The thesis takes farmers’cotton production behavior as research object, launches investigation in typical areas of southern Xinjiang, and studies the impact of farmers’cotton production on land quality and the environment. By studying the relationship and coordination mechanism of’sustainable development of cotton production-environment improving-farmers poverty reduction’of southern Xinjiang, the thesis puts forward countermeasures to preventing from land degradation, and promoting sustainable development of cotton producing in Xinjiang.The thesis mainly includes the following parts:Part one is theoretical foundation, including Chapter I,2and3, to provide the necessary concepts, methods and theoretical basis for the full thesis, to sort out and comment on relevant literatures at home and abroad, and then make a theoretical analysis on the relationship between farmers’cotton production and land degradation; Part two is status analysis, including Chapters4and5, to introduce the natural, economic and social conditions, types of land degradation, and farmers’cotton production and income status in southern Xinjiang, which pave the way for next part; Part three is the study of relationship, including the chapter6,7and8, through questionnaire investigation to farmers and field research in southern Xinjiang, to reveal characteristics of farmers’cotton production behavior, and based on this, to made a in-depth analysis of influences of cotton farmers’production behavior on land degradation, furthermore, to study impacts of government policies on farmers’cotton production and environmental change due to government’s strong guidance to farmers in southern Xinjiang; Part four is countermeasures and suggestions, that is Chapter9, to Put forward countermeasures about optimizing cotton farmers’production behavior and improving the status of land degradation in southern Xinjiang from farmers’and government’s level respectively. Through above research, the thesis confirms and analyzes the relationship and mutual influence between cotton farmers’production behavior and environmental changes. Meanwhile, the thesis can provide the reference for government policies, and also theoretical and practical guidance to the livelihood in similar regions.The possible innovation of the thesis is as following:1. Research perspective. The thesis focuses on cotton farmers of southern Xinjiang, and based on micro perspective, analyzes the relationship between cotton production and land degradation systematically, providing plenty of theoretical and practical materials for the research of cotton sustainable production and regional ecological protection.2. Research method. The thesis takes southern Xinjiang as research area, and Aksu, Kashgar and Hotan prefecture as sample area including300cotton farmers in total, and finally got266effective questionnaires. Through big-scale field research, by doing questionnaire and interview, plenty of first-hand materials were obtained, and based on these materials, the thesis analyzed cotton farmers’production behavior and aspiration, studied the relationship between cotton production and land degradation, and the micro causes of land degradation. The thesis analyzed the effects of cotton production on fanners’income with related regression model, used logistic model to analyze cotton farmers’production behavior causing land degradation in southern Xinjiang, and analyzed interaction mechanism between government and cotton farmers of southern Xinjiang with game theory.3. Put government behavior into research field. Cotton production may have big influence of the environment, while ignoring the environment and developing economy are becoming the’wise choice of the government, furthermore, government’s policy implementation often deviates from its original intention. The thesis analyzed the influences of government policy on cotton farmers’production behavior and the environment, which has strong theoretical and practical significance.