Fighting for the poverty: a case study for human migration in the context of sustainable dryland farming development in the Southern Ningxia Hilly Area

Abstract

The Southern Ningxia Hilly Area is one of the most impoverished areas of Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region (a province) of China due to an economy that mainly relies on agriculture, which is affected by droughts in two out of every three years. Government programs have attempted to develop an increased and sustainable level of scientifically based agricultural production while restoring the environment. However, since the population exceeds the capacity of the land to adequately support it, a program is underway to move 350000 people to more suitable locations. This paper outlines the past improvements to the Southern Ningxia Hilly Area and considers future development in the context of migration for ecological reasons.

Keywords

agricultural production / animal husbandry / development strategy / ecological migration

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Acknowledgments

The authors thanks Dr. Robert P. Marzec, Department of English, Purdue University, USA for language editing and thanks also giving to Dr. David Warrington who worked at the State Key Laboratory of Soil Erosion and Dryland Farming in the Loess Plateau, Institute of Soil and Water Conservation, Northwest A&F University for the critical reading and language editing of this manuscript. It is greatly appreciated that this journal also invited patience and conscientious reviewers for the improvement of the manuscript. The authors also thank the Twelve Five National Science and Technology program (2011BAD31B05) for financial support.

RIGHTS & PERMISSIONS

Higher Education Press and Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg