Relationships Between The Spatial Changes Of Agricultural Specialized Villages And Geographical Environment

Regional specialization is an important development approach to modern agriculture. Agriculturalspecialized villages is one of the realization paths for rural specialization, which attracts wide attention ofscholars. The present research on specialized villages paid less attention to geographical environment inrural areas, lack of concern with the content of spatial distribution, the diversity in different types ofspecialized villages and the change of influential factors in different period. This paper focuses onagricultural specialized villages, which is a unique rural economic development entity, then selectedagricultural specialized villages in Henan Province as the research object. In view of the actual productionsof agriculture, the number of agricultural specialized villages, the characteristic direction and researchneeds, agricultural specialized villages is divided into10types. Based on related theories of geography andeconomics, this paper proposes an analytical framework exploring the options of agricultural specialization,spatial distribution and the type formation of agricultural specialized villages. Taking ArcGIS10andSPSS19.0as the main instruments, this paper explores the spatial distribution characteristics of agriculturalspecialized villages, revealed the internal influence mechanism of spatial distribution from the perspectiveof village geographical environment. Through correlation analysis, the paper draws the followingconclusions:(1) The specialized villages with high comparative returns of agricultural products have numericalsuperiority, while the number of specialized villages is relatively small, which have special requirements tothe geographical environment and with low comparative returns. The changes of residents′consumptionstructure of agricultural products affect the number of related specialized villages. The amount of totalspecialized villages increases obviously and the structure is relatively stable. The number of agriculturalspecialized villages has significantly increased, which has wide suitable plant regions, high commodityratio and comparative returns. However, there is a small change in agricultural specialized villages withnatural environment and capital directional properties.(2) The spatial distribution of specialized villages is imbalanced and different in the type. Affected bythe factors of geographical environment as topography and location, specialized villages located in plain are in large quantity and high degree of agglomeration. Conversely, specialized villages located in hillyterrain and mountain area are small in quantity and decentralized. High value areas of kernel density focuson superior geographical conditions along the traffic areas. Different types of specialized villages aredifferent in spatial distribution and regional concentration. The specialized villages of Henan province aresimilar in integral pattern of kernel density but regional variation is obvious in2009and2012.(3) The specialization rate of agricultural specialized villages is significantly influenced byenvironmental factors. More labour force leads to lower agricultural specialization. The agricultural scaleeconomic of specialization is obvious in the rural areas which have more per capita cultivated land and thatis advantageous to the specialization rate increase. The topography is always the important factor thataffects agricultural specialization rate. The agricultural specialization rate of hilly terrain and mountain areais lower than the plains. The significance and influence degree of agricultural specialization rate whichimpacted by the market environment have a difference between various types of agricultural specializedvillages. Village location affects agricultural specialization rate significantly.(4) As the development of rural economy, the impact effects of environmental aspects have slightlychanged. As time goes by, agricultural specialization production is less dependent on labour resources. Thenegative effects of hilly and mountainous topography on agricultural level of specialization weakengradually. The market factors have highlighting influence on the agricultural specialization rate. On accountof different and changing geographical location conditions, the agricultural comparative advantages arerelativity and dynamics. The comparative advantage of adjacent consumer market in suburban agriculturearea is replaced by the shortage of agricultural land and the rising cost of land caused by urbanization. Thespatial distribution of agricultural specialized villages showing a new tendency transfers from suburb toexurb and rural area.(5) Different environmental factors have the different impacts on the types of agricultural specializedvillages. Positive impacts of labour resources are observed in the formation of agricultural specializedvillages, especially for labour intensive production such as floristry, vegetable and so on. Abundant inarable land is good for specialization in grain and oil crops, tea plantation and fruit farm, which need alarge scale of land input. The topographic condition influences the formation probability of different typesagricultural specialized villages. Adjacent to the wholesale market results in higher probability of specialization in vegetable, fruit, floristry, which shows stronger dependency and sensitivity toward themarket, but it may hamper the formation of breeding industry. The closer location to its city and county sitebenefits specialization in vegetables and fruits.