Understanding the Effects of China's Agro-Environmental Policies on Rural Households' Labor and Land Allocation with a Spatially Explicit Agent-Based Model

Understanding household labor and land allocation decisions under agro-environmental policies is challenging due to complex human-environment interactions. Here, we develop a spatially explicit agent-based model based on spatial and socioeconomic data to simulate households' land and labor allocation decisions and investigate the impacts of two forest restoration and conservation programs and one agricultural subsidy program in rural China. Simulation outputs reveal that the forest restoration program accelerates labor out-migration and cropland shrink, while the forest conservation program promotes livelihood diversification via increasing non-farm employment. Meanwhile, the agricultural subsidy program keeps labor for cultivation on land parcels with good quality, but appears less effective for preventing marginal croplands from being abandoned. The policy effects on labor allocation substantially differ between rules based on bounded rational and empirical knowledge of defining household decisions, particularly on sending labor out-migrants and engaging in local off-farm jobs. Land use patterns show that the extent to which households pursue economic benefits through shrinking cultivated land is generally greater under bounded rationality than empirical knowledge. Findings demonstrate nonlinear social-ecological impacts of the agro-environmental policies through time, which can deviate from expectations due to complex interplays between households and land. This study also suggests that the spatial agent-based model can represent adaptive decision-making and interactions of human agents and their interactions in dynamic social and physical environments.

Effects of boom and bust grazing management on vegetation and health of beef cattle used for wildfire prevention in a Mediterranean forest

Humans and wildfires have historically driven landscape structure in the Mediterranean basin. The Iberian Peninsula is not an exception to that rule, and therefore, farmers, researchers, and governments seek alternative tools to minimize the loss of biodiversity and wildfire risks. Extensive livestock including beef cattle is currently promoted as a suitable management tool by European agro-environmental policies yet pieces of evidence exist regarding the reciprocal effects between cows and Mediterranean woody vegetation. In this work, we performed a field manipulation to evaluate whether free-ranging beef cattle without supplementary feeding, at high density (2 livestock units (LU)/ha) for a short period of time i.e. "boom and bust grazing" management, are able to adapt their grazing preferences to the Mediterranean woody vegetation without health impairment, and prevent from bush encroachment and wildfires. For our purposes, a native herd of 14 adult cows was kept captive without supplementary feeding in a 14 ha enclosure covered by Mediterranean vegetation for two months (April-June 2016). Plant and cattle fecal and blood samples were collected to assess diet composition (plant cuticle microhistological analysis), fecal nitrogen and protein contents of consumed plants, and the nutritional status (non-esterified fatty acids) of cattle. Our results showed that cattle adapted their feeding habits toward a more woody diet including potentially flammable taxa but with some detrimental effects on health status. Hence, cattle cannot control woody vegetation for long periods of time without supplementary feeding. Further research should be oriented to explore other alternative approaches to minimize the health impairment of cattle used for control flammable vegetation in Mediterranean regions.