Ecological agriculture modes design in Huayang Lakeside Zone

Lakeside zone belongs to land-lake ecotone and is a critical element of lake ecosystem. In recent years, ecological functions of lakes and wetlands have significantly declined due to unreasonable use of resources. This has led to a serious shortage of ecological resources. Ecological agriculture has been used to set up multi-level recyclable and healthy agro-ecological systems, which is beneficial for saving resources and ecological remediation. As a result, ecological agriculture is vital for restoring and protecting ecosystems. Huayang Lakes Area is located in the land-lake ecotone in the middle and lower reaches of Yangtze River. Although this area has abundant resources, the ecological environment is fragile. Also because of high demand for agricultural products, there is the need to set up an ecological agriculture that can sufficiently protect the ecology. Ecological agriculture can make use of multi-level and three-dimensional systems for different organisms and can also meet the purposes of resources saving, pollution reduction and ecological restoration. The design of ecological agriculture modes are based on the theory of ecology, ecological economics; and on the principles of food chain, systems engineering, ecological niche and "tri-benefit" coordination development (ecological, economic and social benefits). Ecological agriculture modes were designed in this paper by using the methods of flat structure design, three-dimensional structure, food chain structure design and production chain structure design in Huayang Lakes Area of Anhui Province. It was also based on local agricultural conditions, social and economic conditions and market orientation principle. The study was conducted on the bases of conditions of agricultural production and agricultural products demand in the area, including urban economic area, wet lakeside area, major agricultural products area, characterisitic-crops production area and farmers' courtyard. Through analysis of regional agricultural production characteristics, the paper designed eight types of ecological agriculture modes. These were space resource utilization modes, material cycle multi-state utilization modes, biological symbiosis modes, farmers' (courtyard) production and living complementary mode, and leisure and sightseeing agriculture mode. The paper also used cyclic flowcharts to detail the components and circulation processes of each mode. Specific focus was placed on the development of herbivorous livestock mode, comprehensive development of ecological economy industrial park mode, comprehensive development of wine park mode. In the allocation of different modes, determining reasonable development strengths and proper modes combination based on the sensitivity of the ecology were critical.