Comprehensive evaluation of modern agricultural development level in contiguous destitute area of Lvliang Mountain, Shanxi Province

Abstract

An evaluation model was established using a combination of AHP and multi-objective linear weighted function methods to comprehensively evaluate the development level of modern agriculture in the contiguous poverty-stricken areas of Lvliang Mountain in Shanxi Province. The results show that: (1) As a whole, the contiguous poverty-stricken areas have a low degree of agricultural modernization and are in the initial stage of development. The degree of modernization of agricultural production conditions, agricultural production results, and farmers’ living standards is gradually decreasing; at the municipal level, the degree of agricultural modernization in the three cities is the same. Not high, the order is Xinzhou City > Linfen City > Lvliang City; at the county level, the degree of agricultural modernization varies greatly. The counties in Xinzhou City are in the high-level sub-stage of the initial stage, and the counties in Lvliang City are in the low-level sub-stage of the initial stage. The overall degree of agricultural modernization in counties shows a spatial pattern of low in the middle and high in the north and south; (2) The contributions of agricultural production conditions, production results and farmers’ living standards to modern agriculture are 16.4%, 29.7% and 53.9% respectively. The low level of agricultural electrification and mechanization and backward production conditions are bottlenecks in the development of modern agriculture. The backward agricultural production conditions lead to inefficient production results, low disposable income of farmers, and low living standards of farmers, which are the root causes of the slow development of modern agriculture in the region.