Farm household livelihood diversity and land use in suburban areas of the metropolis:The case study of Daxing District, Beijing
大都市郊区农户生计多样化及对土地利用的影响——以北京市大兴区为例

Based on a fieldwork data collected from 395farm households in Daxing District,Beijing,this paper firstly designated an index system appraising different resource endowment status for sampled farmers,and then classified them into five groups using non-hierarchical cluster analysis,that is,(1)intermediate land endowment with moderate non-agricultural income;(2)high land endowment with non-agricultural income;(3)intermediate land endowment with low non-agricultural income;(4)pure farmers;(5)non-agricultural household,finally examined the impact of farm household livelihood diversity on land use.Our study shows that:(1)farmer groups 1-3,pure farmers and non-agricultural households from suburban areas of the metropolis tended to take strategies such as combining agriculture and non-agriculture opportunity,staying in agriculture and leaving agricultural field respectively;(2)for farmer groups 1-3and non-agricultural households,the livelihood diversity index(LDI)for about 70% of the farm households ranged from two to three with grain crops sown areas having the biggest share of the total planting area,followed by that of economic crops;(3)for farmer groups 1-3 and non-agricultural households,local non-agricultural employment was the main choice for farm household labor with the lowest age and highest education level;(4)due to the extensive farmland conversion at district level in suburb areas of the metropolis,farmer groups from 1 to 4 were forced to be transformed into group 5.Lower return from land use continuously promoted diverse farm household livelihoods,which might cause consequences such as standstill grain production,land circulation,big-scale land properties change,and soil nutrient enrichment.