Grain-For-Green And Agricultural Land Resource-Industry System Coupling In Loess Hilly Region

The Chinese government initiated a massive conservation policy, the "Grain-for-Green" programme, to improve the eco-environmental status and to increase the income of farmers. The systemic coupling reasonably between agricultural land resource and industry is one of the important way to achieve the above objectives. In this context, it is necessary to research the effect of Grain-for-Green policy on the agricultural land resource-industry system coupling, which not only helps enhance the understanding of the agro-ecological economic system coupling mechanism in Loess Hilly Region, but alse makes great sense to policy formation of consolidating the ecology conservation achievements.Existing literatures we have got always take care of the coupling relationship of agricultural eco-economic system, but very little attention on the effect of Grain-for-Green policy on agricultural eco-economic system coupling. Particularly, most people always open up their research of agricultural land resources-industry coupling form the macro-perspective, but little from the micro-perspective of household.This thesis mainly explores the relationship between Grain-for-Green and household behavior in agricultural production, which thereby affects agricultural land resource-industry system coupling. Using the sampling survey data of households in Mizhi, Ansai and Wuqi in Shaanxi collected in 2008 and 2009,I propose a theoretical and empirical analysis about the relationship between household's production decision and agricultural land resource-industry system coupling under the influence of Grain-for-Green. Based on the framework of "pressure-state-response (PSR)", I firstly build a theoretical model of production decision-making of household, which examines the impacts of Grain-for-Green policy on the behavior of household in agricultural production, and then make two hypotheses; Secondly, I use Thornes's idea for reference to establish indicators reflecting agricultural land resources-industry coupling; Thirdly, I introduce the Grey Relational Model and Coupling Model to assess the coupling degree of agricultural land resource-industry system; In the end, empirical analysis is conducted to measure the impacts of Grain-for-Green on household's production decision and agricultural land resource-industry system coupling. The main conclusions obtained are as follows:(1) The agricultural land resource-industry system coupling of Loess Hilly Region is in a moderate state, yet not fully achieve the reasonable matching and coordinated situation.(2) Grain-for-Green policy significantly affects household's decision-making in agricultural production, inducing farmers to reduce the investments on agricultural lands. This implies that the extension of the Grain-for-Green subsidy and the expansion of the non-agricultural employment opportunities have significantly reduced household's dependence on agricultural lands, farmers are becoming more likely to cut down the family labor input in agricultural production.(3) Grain-for-Green policy makes a significantly negative effect on agricultural land resource-industry system coupling, registering as household's agricultural inputs decrease and irrational arrangement of agro-industry structure to the agricultural land resources.