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Learning analytics is a domain that has been constantly evolving throughout recent years due to the acknowledgement of its importance by those using intelligent data, learner-produced data, and analysis models to discover information and social connections for predicting and advising people's learning [1]. Learning analytics may be applied in a variety of different cases, but their role in understanding the multilingual requirements of users of learning portals is of an outstanding significance. As the adaptation of existing portals in multilingual environments is a cost- and time-consuming aspect of the development of a portal, the outcomes of learning analytics may provide the requirements on which further multilingual services of a portal will be built, ensuring their efficiency. This paper aims to identify and interpret the behavior of users from developing countries in a multilingual learning portal using the log files of the portal by applying the methodology defined in a previous work by Stoitsis et al. [2] The paper also aims to identify the aspects that should be studied by future related works by focusing on specific regions and countries that exhibit special interest for further adaptation of the portal to additional multilingual environments.

Purpose: Agricultural technical education is widely used in Chinese agricultural production to reduce farmers' pesticide overuse. However, the effectiveness of technical education is questioned by scholars who found that it fails to promote farmers' pesticide management. In this study, we aimed to explore whether farmers' interpersonal trust in education staff affects the efficiency of technical education. Design/methodology/approach: A questionnaire-based cross-sectional study was conducted on Chinese vegetable farmers with 117 open field vegetable growers and 119 greenhouse vegetable growers. Data were analyzed using a multivariate regression model. Findings: The results show that technical education can significantly reduce farmers' pesticide application in vegetable production. And the effect of specific guidance is stronger than that of course training. The response of farmers on technical education, as a proxy of farmers' understanding capacity on education knowledge, negatively affects farmers' pesticide costs. More importantly, we find that farmers' trust in education staff could affect the positive effect of agricultural technical education on pesticide application. Practical implications: This study will enable education staff/officers to value interpersonal relationships, which can instruct farmers to turn the pesticide knowledge they received from technical education into production practice. Theoretical implications Promoting farmers' trust in information providers will increase the efficiency and quality of knowledge transmission and transformation in agricultural technical education. Originality/value: This paper highlights the importance of interpersonal trust in agricultural technical education, and offers an available explanation for controversy over on efficiency of agricultural technical education.

The academic programs at the graduate level are increasingly interested about the enrollment management challenges in terms of international student mobility. Understanding fundamental enrollment concepts to attract international students provides the essential key to consider the competitive environment concerning university resources, academic program potential, complex cultural dynamics, and workplaces among others. Based on a six-year quantitative and descriptive statistical study, this paper addresses the trends of first-time graduate enrollment and patterns of international student mobility by faculty at the University of Puerto Rico at Mayaguez. Results revealed the sustained trend of graduate enrollment of international students mainly from South America, Central America, and the Caribbean among others. Moreover, the presence of international graduate students adds a dimension of diversity to UPRM between teaching and research undertakings that enhance the Colleges of Engineering, Arts and Sciences, Agricultural Sciences, and Business Administration. The international student mobility has a consistent tendency mainly in the Colleges of Engineering, Arts and Sciences, and Agricultural Sciences. This consistency resembles the quality and reputation recognized by educational institutions and organizational world rankings. In-depth, understanding the trends related to international graduate enrollment and mobility should be considered by institutional leaders and administrators at UPRM to make knowledgeable decisions and to effectively set priorities to recruit highly qualified international students.

Based on the analysis of the questionnaire survey on learning motivation and learning needs of postgraduates and their demands and suggestions on English teaching, the paper makes a beneficial exploration on English course model for postgraduates in agricultural universities. Under the guidance of academic game theory, the "language skills+ academic communication"-oriented English course model meets the social demands for highly qualified professionals in agriculture and forestry with comprehensive English application abilities.

This paper puts higher agricultural English education how to serve for "Sannong" construction as priority, combining the actual market demand, based on teaching reform in the past few years, tries to explore English nurturing model and curriculum system for real delivery the agriculture-related qualified foreign language professionals. The purpose is to improve agriculture-related quality of personnel, expand the "Sannong" development as well as to reform the Agricultural Universities English subject training objectives, and explore new ways in the solutions on "Sannong" issues.

The Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University-Nova Scotia Agricultural College (FAFU-NSAC) 2 + 2 undergraduate program initiated in 2003 is a model for creative collaboration between China and Canada in undergraduate education. This paper addresses the achievements of the program development and highlights the process for successful curriculum development in the joint program. The authors also discuss some issues and challenges related to the Chinese-Canadian experience in undergraduate education, and propose some recommendations for further collaborations including: enlarging the scale of qualified programs; proposing a systematic baseline to control the program at a macro-level; simplifying coordination procedures with foreign partners; and adjusting the emphasis of courses introduced by the cooperative partner from quantity to quality.

The extreme weather caused by the global warming effect has triggered huge losses to agricultural production. A hot issue for governments and scholars is how to effectively reduce carbon emission intensity in agriculture. The agricultural farming practices that are high pollution and high energy cosuming have exacerbated the vulnerability of regional agroecosystems. The sustainable development of agriculture is faced with the two dilemmas of a low utilization rate of green resources and the serious pollution of farmland. Further, environmental and ecological carrying capacities have reached their limits, seriously hindering the high-quality development of low-carbon agriculture in China. Thus, based on the panel data of 282 cities, the Spatial Dubin Model (SDM) is employed to examine the impact of agricultural mechanization on carbon emission intensity in agriculture. It is found that from 1999 to 2019 carbon emission intensity in agriculture showed an overall downward trend; as of 2019, the agricultural field had completed the target of carbon emission reduction, one year ahead of schedule. From a local perspective, approximately 14.89% of agricultural industries in prefecture-level city have still not achieved carbon emission reduction targets, and agricultural carbon emission reduction tasks were better completed in major grain-producing areas than in nonmajor grain-producing areas. Agricultural mechanization has significantly reduced carbon emission intensity in local agriculture production. The impact of agricultural mechanization on carbon emission intensity in agriculture has not only a significant negative spatial spillover effect but also a significant effect on spatial carbon emission reduction. Compared with non-major grain-producing areas, agricultural mechanization plays a greater role in reducing spatial carbon emissions in major grain-producing areas. Further studies find that agricultural mechanization is conducive to overcome difficulties, such as instability of property rights and land fragmentation, and to achieve large-scale agricultural production, thereby reducing agricultural carbon emissions in nearby regions. However, the transfer of rural labor, adjustments to the structure of agricultural cultivation, and the centralized use of rural land restrict the development of the crossregional service market for agricultural machinery, which in turn weaken its contribution to spatial carbon emission reduction. At the end of this paper, it is suggested that Chinese governments at all levels should introduce subsidy policies for the cross-regional operation of agricultural machinery to solve the problem of their service market failure. Efforts should be made to stimulate the market to develop more energy-efficient and environmentally friendly agricultural machinery products while strictly controlling changes in the use of arable land in non-grain-producing areas, which aims to serve further agricultural mechanization and boost the high-quality development of low-carbon agriculture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The utilization efficiency of agricultural water resources has an overall and long-term impact on agricultural development. However, owing to serious wastage of agricultural water resources for a long time, low utilization efficiency of such water resources has become a common problem in developing countries. Past studies have paid scant attention to the impact of soft factors, namely farmers' educational level and market-oriented reforms, especially in a quantified form, on the improvement of agricultural water utilization efficiency. This study adopted the system Generalized Method of Moments estimation method of a dynamic panel model and used provincial panel data from China for 2007–2020 period. The results show that the utilization efficiency of agricultural water resources can indeed be improved by either promoting farmers' education levels or deepening market-oriented reforms. However, with the advancement of market-oriented reforms, the influence of farmers' education level on the utilization efficiency of agricultural water resources gradually weakens, which is due to the "agricultural to non-agricultural" effect. Finally, this paper proposes policy suggestions to improve the utilization efficiency of agricultural water resources from three perspectives: improving the education level of farmers, optimizing the agricultural water pricing system, and improving the agricultural water rights trading system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article looks at a series of university linkages between Canadian and Chinese universities that were supported by the Canadian International Development Agency as a result of a development agreement signed in 1983 between the two governments. It first reviews relevant theoretical literature on higher education in a global context, and discusses the methodology adopted for the study. Then it provides an overview of a major program of collaboration in management education between 1983 and 1996, presenting views of leaders and participants on both sides. The next section overviews parallel linkages in the areas of education, engineering, agriculture, and medicine over the period from 1988 to 2001, and draws on the literature around university partnerships to identify factors that led, in some cases, to long-term sustainable relationships, but not in all. The final section of the paper reviews two major culminating linkages in environment and law, and suggests that these may have significant lessons for current and future cooperation between Chinese and Canadian universities in a new era of global geo-politics.

Agricultural machinery maintenance skill training is conducive to improving the fault diagnosis and maintenance levels of agricultural machinery for agricultural socialized service providers and plays an important role in providing stable and reliable agricultural machinery operation services. This paper aims to study whether maintenance skill training gives agricultural socialized service providers more advantages than untrained providers, exploring the relationship between maintenance skill training and agricultural machinery service area. Based on a survey of 4905 farmers from 10 provinces in China, an empirical analysis was carried out using a fixed effect model and a propensity score matching method. The results showed the following: First, maintenance skill training had a significant positive impact on agricultural machinery operation service area, including 10.426 ha of machinery tilling service area and 8.524 ha of machinery harvesting service area. Second, since maintenance skill training gave agricultural socialized service providers more advantages in agricultural machinery operation services and enabled them to obtain more orders, it had an indirect positive impact on the quantity of demand for large- and middle-sized agricultural machinery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China's poor rural households produce substantially less grain compared with non-poor rural households. The present paper applies a decomposition approach and uses China's rural household survey data to investigate the causes of this grain output gap. The paper first compares the grain output gap between poor and non-poor rural households, and then decomposes the gap into differences in yield and area sown. The results indicate that the gap in grain output mainly results from differences in the amount of inputs used in production. Differences in the number of labor days and the level of intermediate inputs account for 13.6 and 47.5 percent of the gap, respectively. Poor rural households are also less efficient in their use of intermediate inputs, which contributes to 13.2 percent of the gap. However, the efficiency of poor households' labor days reduces the gap by 7.2 percent, while agricultural physical capital, household head education and agricultural training have no substantial impact on the household grain output gap. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Context: Different from general agriculture, tobacco agriculture in China adopts the production mode of farmers' cooperatives to instruct farmers to engage in tobacco agricultural production under a policy of tobacco control. In addition to providing convenience for industry technical standardization, the policy goal aims to cope with the impact of production risk shocks and ultimately ensure the modernization and transformation of the tobacco industry and the stability of income of farmers. Objective: This study intends to explore the influence mechanism of the different degrees of cooperation and participation in cooperatives on the income of tobacco farmers from the perspective of risk shocks. Methods: Through the quantitative methods of the OLS regression model, hierarchical regression model and moderation model, this paper analyzes the data of 393 farmers engaged in tobacco agricultural production in Shaanxi Province obtained from survey and empirically analyzes the relationship between the degree of cooperation and participation in cooperatives and income. Interaction terms between risk shocks and cooperation are introduced to verify the regulatory effect of participation in tobacco farmers' professional cooperatives on mitigating risk shocks and improving agricultural income. Results and conclusions: The results show that while risk shocks, including natural risks, market risks and policy risks, negatively affect the income of tobacco farmers, the degree of cooperation and participation has a significant positive effect on the income of tobacco farmers, and the degree of peasant households' participation in the professional cooperative of tobacco farmers as a moderator variable has a regulatory effect on mitigating the impact of risk shocks on the income of tobacco farmers. The mechanism of action is that tobacco farmers participate in cooperatives to a higher degree, which can further promote the association of farmers and jointly resist risk shocks by reducing production costs, improving the technical level, and strengthening risk prevention and other measures to improve the income level. Significance: It would be helpful to encourage tobacco farmers to take the initiative to participate in the daily management‐related affairs and decisions of cooperatives, strengthen technical training, obey cooperative management, and actively respond to cooperative policies to effectively resist risk shocks and stabilize farmers' income level and family welfare. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aims to investigate whether there are gender differences in the livelihood capital of farming households in China. A stratified random sampling technique and household surveys were used to collect data from Dazu District, China. This paper uses capital values to compute the level of livelihood capital, while the ordinary least squares model is employed to compare gender differences in livelihood capital. The results show significant gender differences in farmers' livelihood capital. Male farmers have more livelihood capital than female farmers. There are also significant gender differences in the factors that affect farmers' livelihood capital. Education and agricultural cooperatives are the major factors influencing the livelihood capital of men, while agricultural policy support and happiness are the major factors influencing the livelihood capital of women. These results imply that specific gender-based intervention programs should be implemented to maintain farmers' livelihood sustainability and to overcome gender gaps in agriculture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Developing agriculture is an important way to get rid of poverty and boost economic development. Entrepreneurship, especially entrepreneurship education, is considered to be an important contributor to the realization of the above objectives. Entrepreneurship education has received more and more attention. Improving the entrepreneurial willingness and skills of agricultural students is of great significance to the economic and social development of developing countries. In order to explore the relationship between entrepreneurship education curricula and satisfaction, especially the agricultural students, we conducted a questionnaire survey in 35 universities across the country between 2018 and 2019 to evaluate the entrepreneurship education of agricultural students in Chinese universities. And 1223 valid questionnaires with 7 interviews were obtained. Furthermore, we used the structural equation model to empirically analyze the questionnaire data and found that entrepreneurship practice plays a part in the mediating effect between entrepreneurship curriculum and satisfaction with entrepreneurship education. This paper expands literature on entrepreneurship education and has certain reference significance for training a large number of agricultural entrepreneurial talents the practice of entrepreneurship education in other developing countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A better understanding of the dynamics involved in grain production is critical for food security and poverty reduction. To this end, several factors influence grain production, including capital (i.e. R&D investment and agricultural credit), agriculture environment (i.e. CO2 emissions), and technical progress (i.e. fertilizers and agricultural machinery). This paper analyses the combined effects of these factors on China's grain crops output from 1990 to 2017 by using the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) approach. The ARDL‐bounds testing approach provided the long‐run connection amid the variables. The findings include: (i) agricultural R&D spending has an encouraging and meaningful influence on grain crops yield in the long‐run and short‐run; (ii) agricultural credit significantly and positively stimulates grain crops output; (iii) CO2 emissions negatively impact grains' output in the short‐ and long‐run; (iv) area under grain crops and fertilizers used also endure a positive spur on grain crops production in the long‐run and short‐run; and (v) short‐run nexus among the variables is navigated for robustness rationale via the vector error correction model Granger causality practice. Hence, the strategy specialists should also acquaint finances through prescribed organizations on comfortable provisions and minimal interests. In addition, the Chinese Governments and agricultural extension organizations should support the easy acquisition of high‐tech cultivating machinery to harvest crops swiftly and explore substantial markets for further business. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Describes Chinese government measures taken to popularize education (1949-1977), including literacy campaigns, new types of popular rural schools, the "Youth to the Countryside" program, and aims and practices of the Cultural Revolution. (MH)

The continuous development of agricultural technologies and produces trade and updated state reforms strongly shape the dominant organizing styles of local agriculture production. Since the end of the 1970s, rural China has witnessed a drastic agriculture transformation featured by de-collectivization, and recently in Taicang, a developed city in the eastern China, a kind of new cooperative farms have replaced the smallholders by pooling households' contracted farmland, signaling a new shift tendency towards agriculture recollectivization that is distinctive compared to other countries. Given the state governance's leadership in promoting this latest transformation, drawing on the theoretical concept of 'governmentality' that is powerful in understanding how to govern the society to meet certain objectives, this paper examines the accurate processes of agriculture re-collectivization in Taicang City based on the methods of semi-structured interview and participant observation. Our research shows that the China's tax-sharing and relevant reforms in the 1990s framed a new governance structure in line with the new mode of 'governmentality' closely linked to 'advanced liberalism', creating the responsibility shift from central to local governments and a set of evaluation technologies, and guiding various actors to engage in the agriculture re-collectivization practice in Taicang. Importantly, the considerable subsidies and the impressive extension services in terms of farming personnel training and agricultural techniques diffusion underpin the normal running of cooperative farms and contribute to the local implementation of national strategy of agriculture modernization. We argue that the combination of distinctive institutional arrangement of rural land owned by village collectives in China and the burgeoning local economy allows the developed areas to re-collectivizing the agriculture production for ensuring grain self-sufficiency rather than capturing more share in global agriculture products trade, and that the cooperative farms in our case have been deeply integrated into the 'modern procurement system' and become more sensitive to market fluctuation, requiring rural extension service to transform towards farms' capacity building for maintaining the long-term development momentum. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores whether a Student's choice of major leads to certain personality traits and the reasons for this phenomenon. Specifically, we look at evidence from two Chinese universities, both of which specialize in agricultural studies. Using the Sixteen Personality Factor (16PF) questionnaire and the Neuroticism Extraversion Openness Five-Factor Inventory (NEO-FFI) questionnaire, we collected data from two groups of students: those who study agriculture-related majors (ARM), and those who study non-agriculture-related majors (NARM). The surveys all showed no significant change in personality traits during Students' freshman year. However, after 3 years of university study, significant personality trait changes were noted between seniors in the ARM and NARM groups. Whereas ARM seniors tended to be socially shy and lower in communicative competence, NARM seniors were better at expressing themselves and communicating with others. Although a Student's choice of profession has an influence on their personality traits, it is not the only factor. The differences between ARM and NARM training models and curricula are also undoubtedly significant. Moreover, the bias against ARM in Chinese society further magnifies the differences in personality traits among students with different majors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Agricultural technical education is widely used in Chinese agricultural production to reduce farmers' pesticide overuse. However, the effectiveness of technical education is questioned by scholars who found that it fails to promote farmers' pesticide management. In this study, we aimed to explore whether farmers' interpersonal trust in education staff affects the efficiency of technical education. A questionnaire-based cross-sectional study was conducted on Chinese vegetable farmers with 117 open field vegetable growers and 119 greenhouse vegetable growers. Data were analyzed using a multivariate regression model. The results show that technical education can significantly reduce farmers' pesticide application in vegetable production. And the effect of specific guidance is stronger than that of course training. The response of farmers on technical education, as a proxy of farmers' understanding capacity on education knowledge, negatively affects farmers' pesticide costs. More importantly, we find that farmers' trust in education staff could affect the positive effect of agricultural technical education on pesticide application. This study will enable education staff/officers to value interpersonal relationships, which can instruct farmers to turn the pesticide knowledge they received from technical education into production practice. Promoting farmers' trust in information providers will increase the efficiency and quality of knowledge transmission and transformation in agricultural technical education. This paper highlights the importance of interpersonal trust in agricultural technical education, and offers an available explanation for controversy over on efficiency of agricultural technical education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

New agricultural management entities have appeared and been encouraged by the government in the People's Republic of China (PRC) in recent years. Mainstream opinion has stressed the need to take action to overcome the perceived inefficient, small-scale, subsistence smallholder economy that rejects the market economy, has no specialized labor and a low level of technology. However, the question as to whether smallholders are inefficient remains to be substantiated. Smallholder farming households play an important role in the agricultural community in PRC. We believe that smallholder farmers are not representative of inefficient agricultural producers. The smallholder business model, not only shows its tenacious vitality and regenerative ability, but it also plays an important role in the economic and political culture of the nation. We adopt the stochastic frontier analysis framework, which accounts for random errors in the production function, together with technical inefficiency effects that are associated with different management capabilities, to analyze the technical efficiency of smallholder farming households and the impact of their household endowments on technical efficiency of crop production in China. The data used in this paper are from the annual statistical surveys of 17 village-level, fixed-observation points in Anhui province from 2011 to 2014, collected by the Ministry of Agriculture. The sample smallholder farming households considered in this paper have typical significance in terms of both location and economic significance. Using these panel data, we avoid the loss of volatility of variables but utilize the dynamic characteristics of technical inefficiency changes. There is evidence that smallholder farming households are performing quite well, contrary to the findings of previous studies. The level of education, technical training, incidence of a cadre in the extended family, and nonfarm incomes have positive and significant impacts on the technical efficiencies of smallholder farming households. However, with the aging of smallholder farming households, increases in loans, increases in total farmland area and greater fragmentation of farmland, the crop production of smallholder farming households tended to be more technically inefficient. From the results of the empirical analysis, we suggest that the government increase investment in agricultural training and rural education, select and train more high-quality village cadres and encourage them to continue to assist in agricultural production of smallholder farming households, establish a unified urban-rural labor market, improve the rural financial credit mechanism so that rural financial institutions will not release loans arbitrarily, and make reasonable arrangements for land development projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rural informatization is an inevitable requirement of agricultural development. In the paper a two-phase model with DEA-Tobit was adopted to analyze the developmental efficiency and the influencing factors of rural informatization in China during 2007-2010. The results showed that, on the whole, the overall developmental efficiency of rural informatization in the Middle and Northwest China was lower than that in other regions of China. In addition, the decisive influencing factors on developmental efficiency of rural informatization were resulted from the nation's macro policy and the global construction of rural informatization projects. The level difference in regional economic development was the main reason for the variation in developmental efficiency. Moreover, the structure and level of consumption by rural residents was an important source that had affected the developmental efficiency. Furthermore, the age of rural population and the education level had a significant influence on the developmental efficiency of rural informatization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study uses the choice experiment method with 570 grain family farms located in the Huang-huai-hai Plain and determine various support policy attributes and the attribute levels for the two dimensions of policy measures and policy communication channels. Ordering effects are eliminated by warming up subjects in advance and using information disclosure. This paper uses the inferred attribute non-attendance method to process attributes ignored by the grain family farms and analyzes grain family farms' preferences for different support policies with a mixed logit model and then uses a latent class model to analyze how the characteristics of grain family farms relate to different preference types. We find that grain family farms have a strong preference for agricultural subsidies, credit support, and technical support (the mean coefficient is greater than 0.8). Moreover, the preferences of grain family farms over the policy communication channel (the mean coefficient is greater than 0.5) cannot be ignored. Faced with the same policy attribute combination, grain family farms with high education levels, reasonable scales of operation, and good understanding of support policies are more likely to improve their profit margins. There are four preference types of grain family farms: finance preference (43.2%), knowledge and technology preference (28.5%), land transfer preference (15.4%), and policy information preference (12.9%). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study evaluates how resilient farmers' livelihoods are to climate change and what factors influence this resilience. To measure resilience, we constructed an indicator system based on the livelihood resilience analysis framework. We surveyed 42 experts and 630 farmers after a climate change disturbance in Aohan Banner, Inner Mongolia, from August to October 2021, and analyzed these data using the comprehensive index method. Meanwhile, we used a multiple linear regression model to analyze the key factors affecting farmer livelihood resilience across different livelihood types and towns. We found that farmers who primarily worked in agriculture had the highest resilience scores and that livelihood resilience differed by geographical location; specifically, livelihood resilience gradually declines from southern to northern areas and from forest and forest-grassland to grassland locations. The results also show that education level, agricultural technology training, transportation infrastructure, accessibility of information, awareness of climate change, climate change perception, change in livelihood strategies, family size, and the holding size of the arable area are positively associated with farmer livelihood resilience, while household head age is negatively associated with resilience. We therefore advise that policymakers should diversify agricultural livelihoods, afforest surrounding arable areas, improve transportation infrastructure, increase learning activities and skill training for farmers, and publicize climate change knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At present, the gap of agricultural talents in China is continuously widening, and most enterprises lack agricultural core talents, which has caused great impact on the social economy. To solve this problem, an improved AHP-KNN algorithm is proposed by combining the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) and the optimized K-nearest neighbor algorithm, and an agricultural talent training model is proposed based on this algorithm. The results show that the classification accuracy and classification time of the improved AHP-KNN algorithm are 96.2% and 27.5 seconds, respectively, both of which are superior to the comparison algorithm. The result shows that the classification accuracy of agricultural talents can be improved by using this algorithm. Therefore, the model can be used to classify agricultural talents with the same characteristics into one class, carry out targeted training, and train all-round agricultural talents efficiently and quickly, so as to improve the serious shortage of agricultural talents at present. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Global climate change and its possible ecological consequences have become the focused issue (IPCC, 2007; Mann et al., 2008; Ding et al., 2009). The Holocene contains the analogous characteristic of future climatic change and the continuous agriculture activity, providing the ideal “similar pattern” for studying the climate change and human adaption and impact in the future. Based on the recent studies of stalagmite, ice core, ocean, and lake etc., the paper introduces the new progress in the Holocene climate and agriculture research in China as follows: (1) Discuss the variability, amplitude, and unstable characteristic of climate, as well as the abrupt events and mechanisms of climate. (2) Analyze the botanical index records for studying the early agriculture. (3) Review the agricultural origin, expanding, and development. (4) Reveal the style and intensity of early agriculture and understand the agricultural impact and adaption to the environmental changes. (5) Introduce ongoing research projects in China and emphasize the significance of increasing the dating precision and the indicative effectiveness of proxies. (6) Realize how the ecosystem and environmental factors respond to the increasing temperature process, understand how the human adapt to the rapid climate change, and provide the scientific basis for assessing the effects of climate change and the human adaption in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines whether agricultural training boosted technology adoption and productivity was a key issue that was concerned by policymakers and researchers. Thus, impacts of fertilizer application training programs on the adoption of formula fertilization techniques and agricultural productivity were analyzed by using the survey data of 691 apple growers. The results indicated that: (i) compared with farmers who did not participate in fertilizer application training programs, the probability of the adoption of formula fertilization techniques was significantly increased by 256.1% for farmers who participated in fertilizer application training programs; (ii) fertilizer application training programs boosted the adoption of formula fertilization techniques via influencing farmers' cognition and willingness; (iii) yield was significantly increased by 14.3% at the 5% level through participating in fertilizer application training programs, and fertilizer application training programs improved agricultural productivity by means of enhancing the adoption of formula fertilization techniques. This study was conducive to evaluating the effectiveness of agricultural training and boosting agricultural sustainable development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary Each year around 10,000 African officials are trained in China, across a range of themes. Among these, agriculture and development policy are prominent. In this paper we ask what lies behind this program, and how it fits with wider commercial, diplomatic, and geopolitical ambitions of China in Africa. Through work carried out in China, Ethiopia, Ghana, and Zimbabwe, involving attending courses, interviewing participants and lecturers, examining curricula and reviewing policy documents, we assess Chinese agricultural development courses, supported by China’s Ministry of Commerce. Contrary to the argument that a singular “Beijing Consensus” is being pushed, we find a wide range of course offerings from a range of institutions across China, and extensive debate about agricultural development. This reflects the internal Chinese debate, and an approach to development emphasizing demonstration, experiment, and learning. Course participation involves officials from across Africa, and does not correlate with Chinese commercial interests in Africa. Commercial opportunities may be linked to training, and some courses are run by companies, although instances of take-up are few. The overall direct and immediate impact on agricultural development in Africa appears limited; instead the training program must be seen in relation to building relationships among a large group of African officials, and so the exertion of “soft power” in foreign policy, as part of development cooperation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to explore the relationship between farmers' happiness and farm productivity, taking maize production in China as an example. Design/methodology/approach: The conditional mixed process model is employed to account for the endogeneity that inevitably arises in regression models studying happiness and estimate the 2015 China Household Finance Survey data. Findings: The empirical results show that a higher level of farmers' happiness is associated with higher maize productivity. The marginal return in maize productivity changes unevenly with increments in farmers' self-reported happiness on a five-point Likert scale. Farmers' happiness is positively determined by their age, educational level, farm size, machinery ownership, access to agricultural subsidy and car ownership. Machinery ownership and access to credit are two important factors that improve maize productivity. Research limitations/implications: The finding suggests that promoting the subjective well-being of farmers is conducive to higher productivity and improved national food security. The results have implications for China and other developing countries aiming for sustainable agricultural development. Originality/value: Firm-level data show that workers' happiness improves productivity. However, it is still unclear whether farmworkers' happiness affects farm productivity. Thus, this study provides the first empirical analysis of the impact of farmworkers' happiness on farm productivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ten years ago, China and several African countries began to develop agricultural training centres, and opened the door for a cascade of optimism and pessimism on why China is interested in developing agricultural partnerships in Africa. Seldom has the appeal of such partnerships for African countries been explored, hence limiting our capacity to fully understand the dynamics of Sino–African agricultural relations. This article addresses the issue by examining why some African countries are interested in partnering with China in agricultural development. This article is based on 44 interviews that were conducted in 2015 at the Sino–African agricultural training centres in Rwanda and Uganda. I argue that Rwanda and Uganda seek to partner with China, as China can offer intermediary agricultural technologies that enable these respective countries to implement aspects of their domestic agricultural development plans. The article also provides reason to challenge the existing optimistic and pessimistic conventions about Sino–African agricultural affairs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As pesticide abuse becomes increasingly serious worldwide, it is necessary to pay attention to the biopesticide adoption behavior of agricultural producers. It is worth verifying whether agricultural cooperatives, as training organizations sharing the same social network with farmers, can promote the adoption of biopesticides through their technology diffusion function. Therefore, based on survey data of 837 citrus producers in Sichuan Province, China, the IV-probit regression model and a mediation effects model were used to empirically test the impact of technical training on farmers' adoption of biopesticides in addition to its mechanism, considering the farmers' perception of technology as the mediation variable. The results show that (a) participation in technical training can significantly enhance the probability of the adoption of biopesticides; (b) farmers' perceptions of biopesticides' economic and health benefits play a partial mediating role in the relationship; and (c) technical training has more significant effects on biopesticides adoption behavior for a household with higher-educated household heads, lower household total income, and smaller household size, relative to their counterparts. This study provides evidence for establishing relevant policy to encourage the full adoption of the technical training function of agricultural cooperatives and popularize the use of biopesticides. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on a survey of college students from the Nanjing Agricultural University and Agricultural University of Jiangxi Sheng, China who are participating in the Western China Program, a voluntary service. It is revealed that 62.5 percent of the college students participating in the Western China Program are doing this out of a sense of social responsibility. Furthermore, 78.2 percent thought that the implementation of the program has provided an employment channel for them. Relevant measures and proposals related to voluntary service of college students are also tackled.

(1) Background: Rare empirical evidence has been explored concerning the ways in which training affects farmers' adoption of resource conservation technology in agricultural production. This study attempts to analyze the role of three factors, including farmers' absorptive capacity, social interaction and active learning, in bridging agricultural training and farmers' adoption of the drip fertigation system (DFS), based on the primary data of 632 banana farmers collected in China. (2) Methods: A mediation model is used to estimate the role of farmers' absorptive capacity, social interaction and active learning in the relationship between agricultural training and farmers' adoption of the DFS. A treatment effect model (TEM) is employed to address the potential endogeneity problem. (3) Results: The results show that agricultural training has significantly increased farmers' adoption of the DFS in banana cultivation. The mediating effect of the three factors appears statistically significant. Specifically, farmers' active learning contributes to the effect of agricultural training on encouraging their adoption of the DFS by around 60 percent; farmers' absorptive capacity and social interaction contribute about 30 and 10 percent, respectively. This study also find that agricultural training can increase farmers' adoption rate of the DFS by 18.75 percent after the endogeneity problem has been addressed using the treatment effect model (TEM). (4) Conclusions: The findings suggest that agricultural training can promote farmers' adoption of the DFS through improving their absorptive capacity, social interaction and active learning. Understating these mediating factors will enable extension agency to design effective agricultural training programs and better promote resource-conservation technologies in developing countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]