Eco-environment contribution of agroforestry to agriculture
development in the plain area of China–Huai'an Prefecture, Jiangsu Province as
the case study area
Affiliations: Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences,
Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100085, China | Academy of Forest Inventory and Planning, State
Forestry Administration, Beijing 100714, China | China National Forestry Economics and Development
Research Center, Beijing 100714, China
Abstract: For improving the environmental quality and ensuring supply of wood
and non-timber forest products, many forests have been planted in plain areas
of China. Scientists have studied their benefits, almost all of the approaches
were based on fixed-point data, and few was considered on the non-efficient
factors and temporal scale effects. This paper studies the positive and
negative benefits at a large temporal scale, and the effects of plain
afforestation on stockbreeding and rural economy. The benefits of plain
afforestation, correlation coefficiency of agroforestry and production factors
are analyzed via stochastic frontier modeling in Huanghuaihai Plain Area of
China; elastic coefficient of agroforestry, husbandry, farming, and total
output of agricultural sector are calculated through adopting partial
differential equation. Some conclusions can be drawn that, plain forests have
an important effect on the development of plain agriculture. But shelterbelts
and small-scale forests have different effect on the development of
agricultural economy. Shelterbelts have negative effect on the industries, but
small-scale forest has positive effect. On the whole, contribution of forest
resource to value of animal husbandry and gross production value of agriculture
is positive, and to the value of farming is negative.
Keywords: plain afforestation, agricultural development, agroforestry, plain area of China
