Coupling coordination relationship between village-level cultivated land pressure and rural poverty in mountainous areas

Abstract: China's poverty alleviation has made great progress, as the years of large-scale development-oriented poverty relief drive since the mid-1980s. At present, the poverty in rural China has transformed into the geo-relation poverty, restrained by individual ability of peasant household, special geographic environment, and resource factors, from the surface poverty that formed by the backward economic development, and deficiency of manage agencies. The lack of resource element has become a major obstacle to poverty governance, especially on the most important livelihood capital of farmers - cultivated land resources. High quantity, quality, and utilization efficiency in cultivated land resources can contribute to poverty alleviation and increasing income of farmers. Therefore, it is necessary to explore the inner relationship between cultivated land pressure and rural poverty in the perspective of cultivated land resources. Taking 109 villages in Zhenyuan County of Yunnan Province as the research unit, this study aims to find the linkages between rural poverty and spatial patterns of cultivated land pressure in mountain area. The weighted sum approach and coupling degree model were used based on the field survey data. The results show that: 1) The indexes of rural poverty and farmland pressure in village scale were both high in Zhenyuan County. The spatial distribution was characterized by "low in the middle, high in the East and West, and secondary high in the north and South" under the ArcGIS10.2 platform; 2) The coupling level of farmland pressure and rural poverty was high, where the coupling factor C reached 0.79. The spatial pattern was characterized by: the high coupling in whole region, the coupling gradually decreased from the central area to the East and West, showing the structural characteristics of "ridge". It infers that there was high coupling in the central region, and low at both sides. The spatial correlation pattern of coupling level showed that the high-high agglomeration area was mainly distributed in Enle Town, whereas, the low-low agglomeration area was mainly distributed in Zhentai town; 3) The main coupling types of Zhenyuan County were classified by forced, mild and moderate coordination. The spatial distribution showed the characteristics of overall coordination and local imbalance. The spatial correlation pattern showed that the high-high agglomeration area was in Zhentai town, whereas, the low-low agglomeration area was in Enle town. In order to alleviate the pressure of cultivated land and rural poverty, the government can increase the investment in cultivated land resources, further to solve the problem of "two not worry and Three Guarantees" for the farmers. Targeted strategies can vary in different regions: 1) In the central region with high coupling level of "double low" type, land improvement can be recommended to increase cultivated land area and optimize allocation of resource, particularly on strengthening the use of cultivated land. 2) In the north and south areas with high coupling level of "double high" type, returning cultivated land to forest can be selected to reduce the pressure of economic development on cultivated land, while, maintain the ecological function. 3) In the eastern and western regions with the relatively low coupling level, the function of cultivated land resources can be used to develop the typical economic industries, mainly including livestock and poultry, tea, and under-forest economy, according to the characteristic resources of mountainous areas.