Variation of standard farming system in agro-pastoral transition zones of northern and southern foothills of Yinshan Mountains in recent thirty years

Standard farming system is the basic work for grading farmlands and is also an important factor for evaluating sustainable agricultural development of given regions. Based on peasant household survey data in the recent two years, planting areas of crops and general meteorological data covering 1980?2010, this paper analyzed variations in standard farming system in the transition zones of agricultural and pastoral areas of northern and southern foothills of Yinshan Mountains, and the corresponding reasons from the aspects of climatic and socioeconomic factors. The study mainly focused on changes in planting structure and spatial configurations of the farming systems. The results showed that the proportion of wheat planting area in northern Yinshan Mountains decreased from 40.00% in 1980 to 11.48% in 2010. Concurrently, cereal planting area in the region in 1980?2010 decreased from about 30% to 13% and while original planting area of potato was rare, it expanded to about 47.32% in 2010. Then from 1980 to 1990 in southern Yinshan Mountains, the proportion of land area planted with wheat increased by 21.70% while the planting area of cereal remained the same at about 35%. Whereas few grew potato and corn in the same period from 1980 to 1990, the planting area of triticeae crops steadily decreased. By 2010, the proportion of land area planted with wheat was 8.55% and that of cereal was very small. Meanwhile the proportion of land area planted with corn and potato rapidly increased, with the proportion of land area under corn of 47.79% and that under potato of about 25% in 2010. The current peasant household survey data were consistent with statistics data for the region. Analysis of the driving factors for the changes in the farming system showed obvious trends for environmental aridity, severely affected cereal by drought, low economic benefits and poor wheat sustainability. Thus although the planting area greatly reduced, high economic benefits was the main factor for the increases in the planting areas of potato and corn. In conclusion, cereal crops have been gradually withdrawn from the local standard farming system. At present, potato and corn were advanced in the development of agriculture in the local region and this had gradually become the standard farming systems of the study area.