Part-time farming has been increasing steadily in China. It is currently the largest segment among all the farm sectors in the country. Based on rural household survey data in Taipusi County as a case site ofecologically-vulnerable areas in North China, we firstly classify farm households into four types according to the proportion of non-farm income in total income, and then compare their agricultural land use patterns to empirically examine the impacts of part-time farming on agricultural land use in this area. The results suggest that non-farming households rent out all their land and give up farming, and this satisfies the expectation of other households to expand land area. The crop planting structure was not significantly different among the households, which reflected the farmers’ will to pursuit labor productivity. Part-time farming households invest more capital and materials than full-time faming households because the income derived from non-farm employment relaxes the financial constraint of households. However, the amount of labor input of part-time farming households tends to be less, and farming practices are dominated by the elderly, female and laborers with relative low educations.Yields of crops and the benefit of agricultural land use incline to reduce, which suggest that the potential of land use productivity is more elastic to labor inputs than capital inputs in the study area.
HAO Haiguang, LI Xiubin, ZHANG Jiping
. Impacts of Part-time Farming on Agricultural Land Use in Ecologically-vulnerable Areas in North China[J]. Journal of Resources and Ecology, 2013
, 4(1)
: 70
-79
.
DOI: 10.5814/j.issn.1674-764x.2013.01.010
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