Sponsors

● Hualou Long, Professor, School of Public Administration, Guangxi University/Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing,100101, China.  E-mail: longhl@igsnrr.ac.cn.

● Erling Li, Professor, College of Geography and Environmental Science, Henan University, Kaifeng, 475004, China. E-mail: erlingli@henu.edu.cn.

● Ren Yang, Professor, School of Geography and Planning, Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou, 510275, China. E-mail: yangren666@mail.sysu.edu.cn.

● Pingyu Zhang, Professor, Northeast Regional Development Research Center, Northeast Institute of Geography and Agroecology of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Changchun, 130102, China. E-mail: zhangpy@iga.ac.cn.

Introduction

With the rapid development of industrialization and urbanization, China has shown a development bias of ‘emphasizing cities over villages’ and one-way flow of urban and rural elements for a long time. The rural development, agricultural efficiency improvement, and farmers’ income increase have become the coreissues that must be solved in the context of the urban-rural integration development strategy in China. The report of the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China pointed out that the issues of agriculture, rural areas and farmers are fundamental issues related to the national economy and people’s livelihood. It requires that solving the farmers, rural areas and agricultural issues be the top priority of the government’s work and implement the rural vitalization strategy. The modernization of agriculture and rural areas and the priority development of rural areas have become the breakthrough point for the country to solve the problems ofagriculture, rural areas and farmers. It is the disciplinary mission of agricultural geography and rural geography to comprehensively and deeply discuss the solutions to farmers, rural areas and agricultural issues and the scientific theory of rural vitalization.

On a global scale, with the process ofurbanization, the vast rural areas are facing problems such as the weakening of the subject of development, the thinning of the rural population, the pollution of the rural environment, and the decline of agricultural economic development. It seen that the farmers, rural areas and agricultural issues have become a global problem. Rural vitalization has also become an important strategy for global rural development. Among them, Japan, South Korea and other developed countries have taken the lead in experiencing the rural construction movement. Scholars from developed countries have carried out a series of studies on the vitalization of rural industries, spatial reconstruction, rural resilience, farmers’ livelihood, social governance, discourse construction of other vulnerable groups, and have also achieved certain results in theoretical construction. Chinese scholars have also carried out a lot of studies on China’s rural areas, agricultural and rural vitalization issues, such as the evolution mechanism of ‘hollow villages’, rural human-environment relationship, rural reconstruction and land use transformation, the formation and evolution mechanism of specialized villages, agricultural industrial clusters. Major research topics for SDGs in the new era, in the strategic needs of national ecological civilization construction, green and high-quality development. The key period for the country to promote the effective connection between poverty alleviation and ruralvitalization. It is necessary to further focus on farmers, rural areas and agricultural issues and rural vitalization in China, deepening the theoretical construction, summarizing the practical model, telling the story of rural vitalizationin China. And promote the discipline development of agricultural geography and rural geography, and better serve rural vitalization, sustainable developmentof agriculture and rural areas in China. 

Research topics

This special issue aims to explore the theories and models of agriculture, countryside, peasants, issues in China, also the theories and practices of rural vitalization in China. We invite theoretically guided, quantitatively supported, and empirical research articles, and welcome articles that address topics such as the following:

Theory and scientific approach concerning the issues of agriculture, rural areas and farmers in China

Theories and typical cases of rural vitalization in China

Rural development differentiation and the transformation mechanism of commercialization of rural space 

The process, effect and impact mechanism of rural digital transformation

Sustainable development of rural greening and the mechanism of spatial governance

Specialization of rural development and spatial restructuring mechanism