scholarly journals Land Functions, Rural Space Governance, and Farmers’ Environmental Perceptions: A Case Study from the Huanjiang Karst Mountain Area, China

Land ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (5) ◽  
pp. 134 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jiangjun Wan ◽  
Yi Su ◽  
Huanglin Zan ◽  
Yutong Zhao ◽  
Lingqing Zhang ◽  
...  

Residents of rural areas live and depend on the land; hence, rural land plays a central role in the human–land relationship. The environment has the greatest direct impact on farmers’ lives and productivity. In recent years, the Chinese government carried out vigorous rural construction under a socialist framework and implemented a rural revitalization strategy. This study was performed in a rural area of Huanjiang County, Guangxi Province, China. We designed a survey to measure rural households’ perceptions of three types of rural spaces: ecological, living, and production spaces. The survey was administered to 379 farmers, and their perceptions and satisfaction with Ecological–Living–Productive spaces were evaluated with the use of structural equation modeling. Analysis of latent and observed variables indicates that: (1) Farmers’ overall satisfaction with Ecological–Living–Productive spaces was moderate. The average satisfaction score for production spaces was lowest (2.881) while that for living spaces was highest (3.468) and that for ecological spaces was in between (3.351). (2) The three most important exogenous observed variables associated with living space satisfaction were house comfort > domestic water supply > domestic sewage treatment. The three most important exogenous observed variables associated with production space satisfaction were irrigation water > cultivated land quantity > cultivated land fertility. The three most important exogenous observed variables associated with ecological space satisfaction were garbage disposal > vegetation cover > flood and waterlogging. Based on the requirements of the rural revitalization strategy and the results of our analyses of rural households’ spatial perceptions, we propose corresponding countermeasures and suggestions.

Energies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 1010
Author(s):  
Aichun Jiang ◽  
Qian Zhong ◽  
Yan Wang ◽  
Yibin Ao ◽  
Chuan Chen

With rapid rural urbanization and new rural construction, the commercial energy consumption of rural residents shows a trend of rapid growth, and China’s rural areas are also faced with environmental challenges brought by the increase of commercial energy consumption. China’s commercial energy consumption behavior of rural residents has also undergone tremendous changes. However, scholars have neglected the research on rural residents’ commercial energy consumption intention from a micro perspective. Therefore, this study takes the 5 villages in Chengdu out of the 100 representative villages in the Sichuan province as examples. From the perspective of the head of a family of permanent rural residents, extended planned behavior theory, exploratory factor analysis, and structural equation modeling are used to explore the influencing factors of rural resident commercial energy consumption intention and their relationship. Findings show that subjective norm, perceived behavioral control (PBC), and habit significantly affect residents’ behavioral intention. Habits significantly influence subjective norms and PBC. Therefore, in the new rural construction, rural residents are the main body and participants of energy consumption. Local government departments should plan reasonably according to the needs and characteristics of residents, constantly improve commercial energy infrastructure, improve service level, and further strengthen farmers’ attitude and satisfaction toward commercial energy. Moreover, they should increase the publicity and education of commercial energy, advocate green housing, and promote energy saving consumption reduction, and sustainable development in new rural areas.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hong Su ◽  
Yuqiu Zhou ◽  
Jianqin Cao ◽  
Haina Wang

Abstract Purpose This study aimed to explore the relationship between social support, self-worth, self-reported health, and subjective well-being among the Chinese rural empty nest elderly, and whether self-worth and self-reported health affect these associations.Methods This cross-sectional study was performed from May 2017 to April 2018, the participants were 365 empty-nest elderly adults from rural areas of Chifeng City in Inner Mongolia. Data were collected with the General information questionnaire, Self-worth questionnaire for adults, Social Support Scale and Memorial University of New Found land Scale of Happiness. Structural equation modeling was used to test the mediation hypothesis. Bootstrapping was performed to confirm the mediation effect. Hayes’s SPSS-PROCESS was used for testing the moderating effects.Results Self-worth showed significant correlations with social support, self-reported health and subjective well-being (all P<0.01).Bootstrapping indicated that the mediating role of self-worth was statistically significant. And self-reported health moderated the social support and subjective well-being association.Conclusions Self-worth and self-reported health are important targets for prevention and intervention for improving the subjective well-being of the rural empty-nest elderly.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Rahul Priyadarshi ◽  
Srikanta Routroy ◽  
Girish Kant

Purpose The purpose of this study is to analyze the post-harvest supply chain enablers (PHSCEs) for vertical integration to enhance rural employability, farmer profitability and rural produce marketability (i.e. market prospects) in the post-harvest supply chain (PHSC). The impact of vertical integration is also explored for various commercial produces. Design/methodology/approach A structural equation modeling (SEM) of PHSCEs for vertical integration was developed to enhance market prospects, rural employability and farmer profitability. The impact of business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-customer market prospects are explored in various dimensions for stakeholders such as farmers, manufacturers (processors), distributors and retailers. The fuzzy technique for order of preference by similarity to ideal solution (F-TOPSIS) was used to prioritize these PHSCEs to improve market prospects and rural employability. Findings The PHSCEs are clustered into three groups, namely, initiatives at the strategic frontier, initiatives at the tactical frontier and concerns for rural employability via vertical integration using exploratory factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis and SEM to prove the null hypothesis. With F-TOPSIS results, the availability of warehousing was found to be the most crucial enabler when observing the PHSCEs from the initiatives’ perspective. The technology adaptability and availability, institute for training and research and information infrastructure and information visibility were found to be the key PHSCEs when observed from PHSC stakeholders’ perspectives. Research limitations/implications The implementation of this study will improve the rural produce marketability, rural employability, B2B marketing (i.e. effective distribution) and subsequent value chains with the practice of vertical integration for fresh produce at the rural level. Practical implications The outcomes of this study have a key role in developing the rural regions and improving rural livelihoods via value addition. The awareness of commercial cultivation and value addition in rural areas needs to be improved. This will help farmers to earn better revenues with improved market prospects in comparison to the revenues obtained from the cultivation of staple/conventional crops. Originality/value In an era of cold chains and food processing, this study aims to disseminate awareness about value addition for commercial and fresh produces at the rural level. The implication of this study will improve rural produce marketability, rural employability and farmer profitability at the rural level with the level of vertical integration.


Author(s):  
Xiaxia Sun ◽  
Jingjing Ge ◽  
Hongdao Meng ◽  
Zhiguo Chen ◽  
Danping Liu

Depression is one of the most common psychological consequences of caregiving. Caring for patients with severe mental illness (SMI) adds significant challenges to family caregivers’ mental health. The purpose of this study was to describe the prevalence of depression among caregivers of SMI patients in rural areas of Sichuan province of China, to examine the influence of social support and care burden on depression, and to explore the intermediary effect of care burden between social support and depression among caregivers of SMI patients. Data were collected from 256 primary caregivers of SMI patients in rural Sichuan Province in China. We used structural equation modeling (SEM) to test the hypothesized relationship among the variables. We found that a total of 53.5% of caregivers had depression. Both care burden (β = 0.599, 95%CI: 0.392–0.776) and social support (β = −0.307, 95%CI: (−0.494)–(−0.115)) were directly related to depression, while social support had a direct association with care burden (β = −0.506, 95%CI: (−0.672)–(−0.341)). Care burden mediated the relationship between social support and depression. For the socio-demographic variables, gender, education level and per capita annual income of household had significant correlations with depression (p < 0.05). The results strongly demonstrated that social support and care burden were predictors of depression, especially social support. Policymakers should fully recognize the role of primary family caregivers in caring for SMI patients and promote interventions to decrease care burden and reduce caregivers’ depression by improving social support and network. More attention should be given to female caregivers and caregivers with lower education and lower household income levels.


2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Yanxue Li ◽  
Zhu Shu ◽  
Dawei Xu

 Accurate poverty alleviation has become an important task in implementing the rural revitalization strategy. Since the 19th CPC National Congress, Chinese government institutions have been striving to take measures to lift poor rural areas out of poverty. This essay takes Tailai district as the blueprint to start the research on precision poverty alleviation, explores and discusses the construction of beautiful villages, proposes strategies for sustainable development, makes people change concepts to coordinate the relationship between interests and concepts. It also points out the target that using the industry as a guide, using technology to alleviate poverty and make the village vibrant. Therefore, the endogenous power will be derived from the roots, and the agriculture, farmer and rural area will be fed back, in order to provide a reference for the Construction of Beautiful Villages in Heilongjiang.


2021 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Min Guan ◽  
Ola A. Nada ◽  
Juan-juan Wu ◽  
Jiang-ling Sun ◽  
Na Li ◽  
...  

Objective: This study aimed to explore the factors influencing dental caries among 3–5-year-old children in Guizhou Province and the interrelationship between these factors using structural equation modeling, while providing theoretical references to improve the prevention and control strategy.Materials and Methods: A total of 1,291 children aged 3–5 years in Guizhou Province were selected by a multistage stratified and whole group random sampling to examine the caries prevalence in whole-mouth deciduous teeth crowns, and parents were surveyed with questionnaires to analyze the caries-related factors. IBM SPSS Statistics v 23.0 software (IBM, Armonk, NY, USA) was used for statistical analysis.Results: The caries prevalence of children aged 3–5 years in Guizhou Province was 63.1%, the mean decayed-missing-filled teeth was 3.32, the caries filling rate was 0.5%, and there was no statistically significant difference between urban and rural areas and among genders in each age group; results of logistic regression analysis showed that the caries risk increased with the following factors: age, brushing frequency &lt;2 times per day when parents did not take their children to the dentist, and with parents poor evaluation of the oral condition of their children. The higher the education of the parent, the lower the risk of children suffering from caries in deciduous teeth.Conclusions: With an overall poor situation about oral hygiene habits, oral healthcare attitude of the parents, and behavior transformation, the prevalence of dental caries in the deciduous teeth of children aged 3–5 years in Guizhou Province is high, and their caries status was severe, with more than 99% of the caries cases that were untreated. Therefore, prevention and treatment measures of caries in preschool children need strengthening through the improvement of public awareness and the enhancement of the management of oral health habits of their children.


1999 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 139-151 ◽  
Author(s):  
Franz X. Bogner ◽  
Michael Wiseman

This study presents a scale developed to measure two dimensions of environmental perceptions—reactions towards preservation and towards utilizing nature and/or the environment—consisting of two and three subscales, respectively. The empirical part consists of a reanalysis of data from four national samples, now analyzed together as one sample. The results of the four subsamples (of some 4,500 secondary school pupils in total) have been published elsewhere as bilateral studies. The aim of the present analysis is to identify a scale that is valid for the entire European sample: By means of factor analyses and structural equation modeling 20 items were extracted. Two latent variables, “Utilization” and “Preservation,” were hypothesized and related in a causal fashion, whereby “Utilization” influences “Preservation.” By application of the methods of linear structural relationships, the proposed model yields a good fit to the data.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 36-55
Author(s):  
Ida Sèmévo Tognisse ◽  
Jules Degila

Mobile telephony networks have seen a high rate of adoption worldwide in recent years. However, these networks do not exist everywhere, and even where they are, their adoption is lagging. Especially in uncovered rural areas, it is difficult to predict the technology's acceptance and adoption factors. This study deals with the usage gap of mobile telephone networks and attempts in a methodological approach based on structural equation modeling to prevent the telephone usage gap in rural Africa yet to be covered. To that purpose, the authors use a research model based on the technology acceptance model (TAM) and the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT). By combining these two models and incorporating the moderating effects of demographic variables such as age, gender, education, and experience of technology use, this paper has retained a model with the ability to determine how rural residents will accept and use future networks.


Author(s):  
Samwel Macharia Chege ◽  
Daoping Wang

This study assesses the influence of agribusinesses technology transfer and innovation in developing countries, Kenya. The study used a sample framework of 300 enterprises and structural equation modeling for content analysis. The findings show that innovation and technology transfer have a positive impact on firm performance and rural development. However, the lack of effective agribusiness technology transfer from R&D institutions to the industry is the main challenge facing agribusiness performance and rural development in developing countries. Thus, the need for financial support for research and development institutes that would promote the linkages between the innovators and the agribusiness enterprises in rural areas. The study recommends that to encourage innovation and technology adoption across business sectors, a suitable policy linking agribusiness enterprises with R&D institutions is critical in promoting innovation transfer from these institutions.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (18) ◽  
pp. 7778
Author(s):  
Tianyang Lou ◽  
Deyong Wang ◽  
Huili Chen ◽  
Dongjie Niu

An unprecedented Household Solid Waste (HSW) separation program was launched in 46 cities and some pilot rural areas in China in 2019. This study examines the antecedents of waste separation behavior using the extended theory of planned behavior (TPB) to identify beliefs that are useful targets for interventions, and compares the urban-rural differences. Based on interviews with rural and urban residents, we identified residents’ beliefs influencing waste separation behaviors, including four behavioral, seven normative, and eight control beliefs. Then, we tested the conceptual model with a two-stage questionnaire survey using a sample of 604 residents from urban and rural areas. Evidence from structural equation modeling supports the extended TPB in that it predicts waste separation intention and behavior on the whole. Moral norm and self-identity were found to independently predict intention and may prove a useful addition to the TPB; however, the path from attitude to intention is not supported in both urban and rural models. Moreover, the specific difference of belief between urban and rural residents was examined. The behavioral beliefs associated to money, including earning, free waste bin or bag, and fine, are significant only in the rural group. The normative beliefs of family, Chinese Communist Party (CCP) members, and government can affect residents’ subjective norm in both urban and rural, while the beliefs of relatives, friends, and neighbors are significant only in the rural group. Implications for managers of operating waste separation programs were discussed. Further investigation into the potential of the model to intervene in waste separation behavior is required.


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