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Promoting sustainable smallholder farming systems in China
Agricultural Systems ( IF 6.1 ) Pub Date : 2024-06-12 , DOI: 10.1016/j.agsy.2024.104035 Xiaoxia Guo , Annah Lake Zhu , Xueqin Zhu , Zhichao An , Yan Xu , Minghao Zhuang , Chong Wang , Fusuo Zhang
Agricultural Systems ( IF 6.1 ) Pub Date : 2024-06-12 , DOI: 10.1016/j.agsy.2024.104035 Xiaoxia Guo , Annah Lake Zhu , Xueqin Zhu , Zhichao An , Yan Xu , Minghao Zhuang , Chong Wang , Fusuo Zhang
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Hundreds of millions of smallholder farmers account for 84% of farming households globally. Owing to the limited access to knowledge and resources, smallholder farming systems under sub-optimal management are facing multiple challenges such as adverse environmental impacts and difficulties in meeting growing food demand. Although substantial advanced techniques and practices have been developed, applying these practices on the ground at a large scale remains a great challenge. This study aims to assess the sustainability of typical soil-crop management practices in order to recommend best practice bundles. The study also deploys a farmer survey in order to identify barriers hindering the adoption of sustainable practices and propose ways to overcome these barriers. To achieve these aims, we develop a generalizable framework combining technical innovations and social realization pathway for sustainable transformation of smallholder farming systems. We apply this framework in the North China Plain as a case study, propose target-oriented practice bundles and subsequent realization roadmaps from smallholder farmer's perspectives and interests. Our results show that nitrogen reduction has the greatest positive effect on the overall sustainability of smallholder farming systems (12–14%), followed by formula fertilizer (6–10%) and optimal crop practices (2–4%). Thus, our recommended practice bundles include reducing fertilizer inputs and optimal sowing date and rate. However, our farmer survey shows that the implementation of these recommended practices faces barriers associated with economic costs, labor requirements, and farmer's preferences and acceptance. We suggest ways to overcome these barriers, including multi-stakeholder platforms better connecting smallholders, scientists, government, and industry. Our framework can be amended to fit different contexts and targets, therefore it can be adopted and tweaked by other regions worldwide dominated by smallholder agriculture to promote sustainable transformation.
更新日期：2024-06-12
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