Time sequence of high-standard prime farmland construction— A case study of Zhuozhou City, Hebei Province

High-standard prime farmlands are high production capacity systems that integrate natural quality of cultivated lands, perfect supporting infrastructures, advanced agricultural techniques and management concepts. However, national investment levels for high-standard prime farmland constructions have remained persistently low. Thus scientifically and reasonably constructing high-standard prime farmlands is critical for present and future sustainability of production. With the construction area of high-standard prime farmland as the studied unit in Zhuozhou County, Hebei Province, the paper adopted the model method, comprehensive multi-factor evaluation method, paired comparison method, and the feasibility and suitability composition matrix method to decide time sequence of high-standard prime farmland. In this article, construction areas were first divided on the basis of prime farmland contiguous condition, eliminating smaller construction areas. Then the construction areas were refined according to the ownership of the divided construction areas. On this basis, the construction areas were used as the basic evaluation units to discuss high-standard prime farmland construction conditions. The established construction feasibility and ecological suitability evaluation index system was used to ultimately determine construction time sequence according to the composition matrix of feasibility and suitability. The results divided Zhuozhou County into 73 high- standard prime farmland construction areas. This included 15 areas of recent construction with total area of 11 241.23 hm², which mainly distributed in Songlindian Town, Matou Town, Diaowo Town, etc. In these regions, social and economic development levels were higher, location conditions superior with better ecological landscape conditions and higher degree of continuity. About 50 medium-term construction areas with a total area of 27 054.07 hm² were widely distributed in the northeast of Yihezhuang Township, the southeast of Gaoguanzhuang Town and Douzhuang Town, and most areas was in the west and northwest of the city. Another 8 long-term construction areas with a total area of 875.98 hm² had a scattered distribution with small average construction areas of only 109.50 hm². In order to fully complete the number and quality goals of high-standard prime farmland construction, relevant government departments needed to consider areas that were feasible for construction and ecologically suitable, and coupled with early and late funding supports for social and economic development. The implementation of any such projects needed rationally to arrange time sequence and select key regions. This was potential in eliminating the main limiting elements through engineering or technical measures that ensured gradual expansion of suitable construction regions. In addition, policy-making should carefully choice pilot regions with low construction intensity and good ecological suitability. At the same time, it was important to broaden investment channels for successful construction of high-standard prime farmlands.