The impact of the Sloping Land Conversion Program on rural area in China: a case study in Yulin District

Abstract

In 1999, China started the Sloping Land Conversion Program (SLCP). Providing farmers with monetary and food subsidiaries, this program intends to green farmlands in areas which have suffered from desertification and over-cultivation on the slope. Its aim is notable in targeting both the restoration of ecology and the adjustment of the rural economic structure. Based on our field study at Y village of Mizhi County of Shaanxi Province, this paper discussed the impacts of the SLCP upon rural life and regional economic growth. Our study reveals that the nonagricultural income had multiplied while the agricultural earning had rapidly decreased since the inception of the SLCP. This tendency underlines the program’s effects of accelerating the transformation in the rural economic structure. As the region has experienced a rapid economic growth driven by mineral resources development, it has been enlarging the opportunities of employment sufficient to absorb the surplus of workforce in the rural area. This mechanism illustrates a close relationship between the SLCP and the regional economic growth.