Identification And Governance Strategies Of Rural Relative Poverty In Desertificated Area

With the completion of the poverty governance phase,relative poverty governance will become one of the important tasks in the new development phase of China.Desertificated areas have poor natural background,fragile ecological environment,low level of economic and social development,high risk of returning to poverty,big governance difficulty,and high incidence of relative poverty.Based on the theories of spatial poverty,capability poverty,multidimensional poverty and sustainable livelihoods,this study calculated multidimensional relative poverty in the study area by constructing an evaluation index system for relative poverty levels at two different scales:farmers and villages,using the participatory rural appraisal method to obtain research datas and various methods such as the multidimensional relative poverty measurement model,the barrier degree model,the geographic detector and the Dagum Gini coefficient.The research identified relative poverty villages and farmers,detected their influencing factors,analysed the mechanism of rural poverty,and proposed the governance countermeasures of rural relative poverty from two different scales.The following conclusions were obtained:(1)The relative poverty degree of farmers with different livelihood types in the study area were significantly different.The relative poverty levels of non-agricultural type(0.328),non-agricultural and part-time type(0.307),agricultural and part-time type(0.283),pure agricultural type(0.283)and subsidy type(0.107)were in descending order.In conclusion,farmers with diversified livelihood modes are better than farmers with single livelihood modes.The Dagum Gini coefficient was used to verify the disparity between groups,and it was determined that 70%of the median relative poverty index was used as the relative poverty line for farmers,and the relative poverty incidence of farmers in the study area under this criterion was 1 8.24%.The relative poverty incidence of farmers under the material resources dimension,the economic conditions dimension,the social capital dimension,the viability dimension and the endogenous motivation dimension were 5.88%,5.29%,27.06%,33.53%,and 21.18%respectively.(2)There were significant variabilities in the explanatory power of influencing factors for the relative poverty levels of farmers in the study area.Geographical probe factor results showed that social security measures(0.380),whether there are rural cadres/employees of enterprises and public institutions in the family members(0.373),life satisfaction(0.368),quantity of durable goods(0.364),income generation(0.336),confidence in future sustainable development(0.311),per capita net household income(0.274),and labour skills training(0.270)were the main factors that had a strong explanatory power influencing the relative poverty level of farmers in the study area.Among them,social security measures(X4)and whether there are rural cadres/employees of enterprises and public institutions in the family members(X5)had stronger explanatory power after interaction,with a q-value of 0.658.(3)The relative poverty index of villages in the study area showed obvious spatial variability.In terms of different landform types,the overall performance was greater in Ordos Gently Sloping Hilly Region(0.392)than in the Loess Hilly Region(0.271).Using 70%of the median relative poverty index as the relative poverty line in the village area,a total of three villages in the twenty four sampled villages were in relative poverty,accounting for 12.50%of the total sample size.The relative poverty incidence in the natural dimension,economic dimension and social dimension were 29.17%,16.67%and 12.50%respectively.(4)There were significant variabilities in the barriers to relative poverty levels of villages in the study area.The rate of difference between the barrier factors in different dimensions was significant in the Ordos Gently Sloping Hilly Region and the Loess Hilly Region.The barriers to the natural dimension included the proportion of effectively irrigated arable land(0.083),the area of arable land per capita(0.076),the vegetation cover index(0.034),the distance from the regional center(0.021)and the distance from the township government(0.016).The economic dimension barriers included the number of commercial establishments(0.086),livestock stock(0.083),the proportion of labour engaged in the primary sector(0.061),rural per capita disposable income(0.050),and village collective economic income(0.042).The social dimension barrier factors were mainly the number of e-commerce distribution points(0.081),the number of social development infrastructure ratios(0.074),the coverage rate of population completing compulsory education(0.056),the proportion of households retrofitted with flush toilets(0.045),and the participation rate of pension insurance(0.033).(5)Farmers are deprived in five dimensions:material resources,economic conditions,social capital,viability,and endogenous motivation,which can easily lead to relative poverty,and villages are disadvantaged in three dimensions:natural,economic and social,which can easily lead to relative poverty.Relative poverty in villages is influenced by both endogenous and exogenous factors.Endogenous and exogenous lags keep villages in relative poverty,while persistent relative poverty limits the development of endogenous and exogenous factors.Based on the analysis of the factors and mechanisms affecting relative poverty in villages,governance countermeasures of relative poverty are proposed at both the farm household and village levels.Different livelihood types of farmers should mostly manage relative poverty in five areas:optimizing material resources,improving economic conditions,expanding social capital,enhancing viability and stimulating endogenous motivation,and different villages should reduce relative poverty in three areas:improving natural capital,enhancing economic capital and improving social capital.The future of rural should be dominated by "internal sources",bringing into play the internal bloodmaking function of villages and farmers,and seeking support from "external sources" in terms of policy,finance,technology and improvement of the geographical environment.