Three dimensions of sustainability of farming practices in the North China Plain

The current pressure on production resources of the People's Republic of China, such as land and water to feed the growing population, necessitates the assessment of farming practices. This is particularly critical in the North China Plain, which is the food bowl of the country. This study assesses the economic, environmental and socio-institutional aspects of the major cropping systems in the NCP, based on selected site-specific indicators and their established threshold limits. Necessary information for this study was obtained through a survey of 270 farm households from four villages in Ningjin County, soil sample analysis, chemical tests of nitrate concentration in groundwater and crop plants, field observation and discussions with key informants, as well as official reports and publications. The findings of the analysis revealed all cropping systems in the study area are economically viable. However, such achievements have been made at a cost to the environment, degradation of natural resources and risk to human health. The real costs of environmental degradation are mounting, taking the forms of groundwater depletion, soil salinization and compaction, and land subsidence over the decades, as well as nitrate contamination in groundwater and agro-products, farmers' sickness, and loss of insect and pest predators. Sensitivity analysis shows that crop production reacts sensitively to changes of output price and in input costs, which implies an unstable production situation in a long period. Only about 6% of the surveyed farm households applied the recommendations of the corresponding agents for balanced input use. The study stresses that farming practices, which are economically viable, should not be promoted at the cost of the environment, otherwise, it would cause acute damage to the environmental and economic loss for the future. Several recommendations have been outlined for the promotion of sustainable cropping systems in the NCP.