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Developing green and low-carbon agriculture is an important and effective way to promote farmers' income growth. Given the country's "dual carbon" goal, the study of the impact of green and low-carbon agriculture on the income of farmers in ethnic minority areas is crucial for China to achieve the goals of socialist modernization and common prosperity. Taking Y Town, Zhijin County, Guizhou Province as an example, this paper uses the OLS regression method to empirically study the impact of green and low-carbon agricultural production methods on the income of farmers in ethnic minority mountainous agricultural areas based on the field survey data of 881 farmers. The regression results indicate that there is a positive correlation between green and lowcarbon agricultural production and the household income levels of farmers; adopting green and low-carbon agricultural production technologies can effectively promote the growth of farmers' household income. In addition, education level, health status, and the new rural social pension insurance have all had a significant effect on the income of rural households, however, due to the difficulty in establishing trust relationships, agricultural service outsourcing has reduced the household income level of farmers. As an example, the land transfer behavior in Y Town has no significant effect on increasing farmers' incomes. Finally, it is recommended to increase fiscal and financial support as well as effectively enhancing farmers' policy awareness and perception of green and low-carbon agricultural production technologies by improving farmers' general trust and institutional trust by strengthening farmers' agricultural education and skills training while cultivating technology-based farming. At the same time, it is necessary to break the geographical restrictions on land transfer scale and achieve moderate-scale land management while promoting the use and adoption of green and low-carbon agricultural production technologies, thereby improving agricultural production efficiency and product quality, and increasing the sustainable growth of farmers' income. The main contribution of this study is to expand the research scope of green and low-carbon agriculture to ethnic minorities and mountainous agricultural areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Using survey data from Shandong, Henan and Guizhou provinces of China, the purpose of this paper is to accurately measure the impact of rural residents' financial education on financial literacy. Design/methodology/approach: This paper chooses one province from the Eastern, Central and Western Regions of China, namely, Shandong, Henan and Guizhou, respectively, and 1,565 samples are obtained through a questionnaire survey. First, the paper constructs a financial literacy assessment framework and, then, scores the financial literacy of the respondents. Second, using ordinary least squares, feasible generalized least squares method and forward search method, the paper estimates the impact factors of financial literacy level. To avoid sample selection errors and endogeneity problems, the authors divide the respondents into treatment group (participated in financial education) and control group (non-participating in financial education) and, then, adopt propensity score matching (PSM) to analyze the impact of rural residents' financial education on financial literacy. Findings: The results show that education level and risk level have significant impact on rural residents' participation in financial education, and some unobservable abilities and qualities also affect their participation. Therefore, the process of rural residents' participation in financial education exists, which gives rise to self-selection and endogeneity problems; financial education is promoting rural residents' financial literacy, but the effect of promotion becomes smaller after taking into account sample self-selection and endogenous problems. Rural residents of female, higher age, single, higher education level, higher parental education level, agricultural type, higher family annual per capita income and lower risk level show stronger effects on their financial literacy level, if they participate in financial education. Research limitations/implications: The survey sample was drawn from three provinces randomly but the site selection was not random. The implication is in rural China, financial education has positive effect on residents' financial literacy level but considering the sample self- selection and endogenous nature, its impact becomes smaller. Practical implications: The government should encourage rural residents to participate fully in financial education activities, especially those with a low educational level, low risk preference and mainly engaged in agricultural production. Originality/value: The effect of financial education on financial literacy has not reached a consistent conclusion, and there is fewer quantitative discussion about this issue. The originality of this paper is based on the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development evaluation index system; this paper constructs the evaluation index system of rural residents' financial literacy in China and uses the PSM method to accurately measure the effect of financial education on financial literacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The area of karst terrain in China covers 3.63×106 km2, with more than 40% in the southwestern region over the Guizhou Plateau. Karst comprises exposed carbonate bedrock over approximately 1.30×106 km2 of this area, which suffers from soil degradation and poor crop yield. This paper aims to gain a better understanding of the environmental controls on crop yield in order to enable more sustainable use of natural resources for food production and development. More precisely, four kinds of artificial neural network were used to analyse and simulate the spatial patterns of crop yield for seven crop species grown in Guizhou Province, exploring the relationships with meteorological, soil, irrigation and fertilization factors. The results of spatial classification showed that most regions of high-level crop yield per area and total crop yield are located in the central-north area of Guizhou. Moreover, the three artificial neural networks used to simulate the spatial patterns of crop yield all demonstrated a good correlation coefficient between simulated and true yield. However, the Back Propagation network had the best performance based on both accuracy and runtime. Among the 13 influencing factors investigated, temperature (16.4%), radiation (15.3%), soil moisture (13.5%), fertilization of N (13.5%) and P (12.4%) had the largest contribution to crop yield spatial distribution. These results suggest that neural networks have potential application in identifying environmental controls on crop yield and in modelling spatial patterns of crop yield, which could enable local stakeholders to realize sustainable development and crop production goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

[Objective] The objective of the paper is to provide the scientific basis for rational fertilization in Jianhe County of Guizhou Province and similar areas. [Method] The effects of soil nutrient indexes(total N .organic matter, available N .available K, available P, total P and total K)on soil fertility are explored by using variation coefficient method, correlation coefficient method and weighted mean method, and then the soil fertility in paddy field and dry' land is evaluated by using improved Nemerow comprehensive evaluation method combined with the weight coefficient mean value of the three methods. [Result] The soil available k in paddy field and total P in dry land were at a lower level, while other nutrient indexes were at a medium-high, high and higher level. The soil available N content in six dry' land sampling sites with different plants was high. Soil total P and available k fluctuate greatly among sampling sites, while organic matter content fluctuates less. The soil available P in fertility factor weighted coefficient of paddy field and dry land was the highest, respectively 0. 2710 and 0. 2358 comparing the mean value of the three weighted method weighted coefficient. The available P is the main factor influencing soil fertility in paddy field and dry' land and soil fertility indexes is 1.52 and 1.63 separately. The soil comprehensive fertility was at a fertile level. [Conclusion] The soil fertility of paddy field and dry land in Jianhe County is at a fertile level, and available P is the main factor influencing soil fertility in paddy field and dry land. The soil N content in paddy field and dry land is high, which can meet the demand of crop production. Therefore, N fertilization should be reduced in production. The soil K content in paddy field is low, and the corresponding fertilization measures should be taken to improve K supply level in paddy field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Taking the typical Karst area of Guizhou Province (southwest China) as an example, this paper analyzes the response of trade-offs and synergies between ecosystem services (ESs) and land use change (LUC). The results of this study showed synergistic relationships between water yield (WY) and soil retention (SR), between WY and carbon storage (CS), and between SR and CS. A trade-off relationship could be found between WY and crop production (CP), and between SR and CP, between CS and CP under the influence of LUC from 1995 to 2005. A trade-off relationship was found in the other ESs from 2005 to 2015 in addition to a synergistic relationship between WY and SR, and between CS and CP under the impact of LUC. Obviously, spatial differences in trade-offs and synergies have been found between ESs resulting from LUC from 1995 to 2005 and from 2005 to 2015. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate change has emerged as a significant man-made global environmental challenge marked by rising temperature. The global rising temperature is supposed to alter climatic patterns like floods and droughts, thereby affecting human life supporting system and global food production. In order to clarify the impact of weather events on agricultural production in karst landforms, this study selected the indices of the growth period of crops (start time and duration), growing season precipitation, intense precipitation, number of consecutive rainless days, and number of drought-flood abrupt alternation events to evaluate the variation trend of future weather events and their impact on crop growth in Guizhou Province, China. The results show that (1) the climate is generally getting warmer. From 2019 to 2050, the sowing period of winter wheat and rice tends to be postponed. The duration of maize and rice's growth period will be shortened, and the life cycle of wheat also emerges as having a decreasing tendency except for those from the southern region. Comparing with the mean value during 1961 to 2018, the average crop cycle length of winter wheat, summer maize, and rice was shortened. The rate of shortening of crop cycle length is faster than the value during 1961 to 2018. (2) In the next 30 years, extreme precipitation concentrates in June and mainly falls in the central and southeast parts of Guizhou Province. In addition, summer is the outbreak period of drought events and drought-flood abrupt alternation events, which has a great impact on crop's growth. This study can provide references for the planting system, structure, layout, and management of crops in the karst region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The karst area accounts for 61.9% of the total area in Guizhou Province, which gives rise to a fragile environment and backward economy. Comparative studies on the element contents of rock and soil and agriculture production in both carbonate area and non-carbonate area have been made to establish factors leading to low output and poor quality of agricultural products in the karst area. The result shows that there is an apparent lack of nutrient elements in carbonate rocks. The trace element contents of carbonate rocks are only 3532.27×10, but those of non-carbonate rocks are 10894.21×10. The available element contents in cultivated soil delivered from carbonate rocks are merely 101.4×10, but those from non-carbonate rocks are 326.05×10. The available element contents and total element contents in cultivated soil delivered from non-carbonate rocks are 3 times higher than those from carbonate rocks. Besides, high-quality agricultural products such as rice, potato and tea are mainly produced in the non-carbonate area. It is indicated that the low output and quality of agricultural products are caused by the above-mentioned low trace element contents and poor agricultural environment. Therefore, a new method of mineral nutrients compensation has been put forward, which is very effective to raise the load-bearing capacity of agricultural environment, agricultural output and quality of agricultural products. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article describes agricultural technology extension, access to channels of information and adoption of agricultural technology in rural Guizhou, China. It addresses the questions of whether the agricultural technology extension process matches the needs of the villagers and whether in using extension services and adopting technologies there are differences between older and younger cohorts of farming households. Few farming households can get formal extension services and their main channels of information are neighbours, relatives and friends. Older cohort households like to learn by experience, while younger ones like to use written materials. There also appear to be differences in the ways women and men adopt technologies. Technology delivery and farming households’ needs are not well matched. Finally, the migration context has an influence on the suitability of technologies and the feasibility of applying them. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

To meet the sustainable development goals in rocky desertified regions like Guizhou Province in China, we should maximize the crop yield with minimal environmental costs. In this study, we first calculated the yield gap for 6 main crop species in Guizhou Province and evaluated the quantitative relationships between crop yield and influencing variables utilizing ensembled artificial neural networks. We also tested the influence of adjusting the quantity of local fertilization and irrigation on crop production in Guizhou Province. Results showed that the total yield of the selected crops had, on average, reached over 72.5% of the theoretical maximum yield. Increasing irrigation tended to be more consistently effective at increasing crop yield than additional fertilization. Conversely, appropriate reduction of fertilization may even benefit crop yield in some regions, simultaneously resulting in significantly higher fertilization efficiency with lower residuals in the environment. The total positive impact of continuous intensification of irrigation and fertilization on most crop species was limited. Therefore, local stakeholders are advised to consider other agricultural management measures to improve crop yield in this region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]