Following Rural Functions to Classify Rural Sites: An Application in Jixi, Anhui Province, China

Abstract

Rural areas are a type of self-organized regional living environment, with multi-functional symbiosis between humans and land; their functional attributes are function superposition, function difference, and dominant function. The evolution of rural functions is a gradual process and follows the general law of the development of self-organizing systems, which evolutes from the state of general development, competition without rules, and, finally, to an order controlled by the dominant function. By constructing an indicator system and measurement model of rural function evaluation, this study took 11 towns in a hilly area of Jixi County as regional units to analyze the differentiation characteristics and rules of rural functions; the functions include agricultural production functions, nonagricultural production functions, life and leisure functions, and ecological functions. The results show the following: (1) The index of agricultural production functions, life and leisure functions, and ecological functions in Jixi County is higher, while the index of nonagricultural production functions is lower; (2) all towns have at least one function belongings to the “high state strong potential zone”, and some towns show a weak comprehensiveness; (3) the interaction between different functions should be considered when determining the dominant functions of the towns; (4) the formation mechanism of a dominant function has a high correlation with its main influencing factors; and (5) nine types of characteristic village are determined, according to the coupling of village characteristic resources and town dominant functions.

Policy Gaps Related to Sustainability in Hungarian Agribusiness Development

“…The third identified policy gap is the missing complex landscape management approach. In addition to agricultural production, rural areas also have other ecological, economic, and social functions [81][82][83]. Although agriculture is the largest land use sector, its role is not exclusive.…”

Rural Effectiveness Evaluation: A New Way of Assessing Village Development Status

“…External to the village, the implicit system consists of the national and regional environment, urban-rural relations, and so on, and is dominated by all levels of government, policy environment, investment institutions, talent and technology, and markets, with efficiency evaluation describing the state of the flow of factors [28,29]. The capacity to achieve the goals of management decisions in the process of the flow of various elements in the village is measured by village development efficiency, which is an implicit representation of the status of village development [30]. It is an implicit representation of the state of village development, as it measures the level of inputs (natural resources, human resources, social capital) and outputs (economic outputs, human facilities, ecological environment) of villages to assess the level of positive effects and benefits obtained from village resource inputs, reflecting the size and strength of villages and towns' ability to achieve effects and benefits [31].…”

Global Markets, Local Issues: The Hegemonic Process of Agri-Food Construction to Present Challenges

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