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In Beijing, urban agriculture (UA) experienced a corkscrew development with its role changing in decades: It has evolved from the purely production mode to multi-functional urban agriculture, fulfilling both social and ecological demands. At present, the practice of UA as well as the number of rural to urban migrants is growing rapidly in peri-urban Beijing. Through Multi-stakeholder Process for Action planning and Policy Design (MPAP) methodology and four in-depth case studies, we can see that UA activities are playing very important roles in reshaping peri-urban Beijing. Socially, UA induces the emergence of new migrant communities. While migrants rebuild their social network, they are changed by the city as well, which has also changed the local community. The new comers are on their way to creating a new balance. Physically, urban and peri-urban farmland limits urban sprawl, supplies agricultural products for everyday life, and reserves urban green spaces for recreation and leisure for citizens in Beijing, which has changed the landscape and land use and land cover (LUCC) pattern greatly. Under Beijing's land policy, the concentric configuration spatial allocation through multi-functional UA is formed, which at the same time due to migrants' UA activities are creating harmful and low efficient land use pattern which should be of concern.

The purpose of this paper is to optimize manure allocation through nutrient budgeting strategy to meet crop nutrient requirements under maximizing economic returns and environmental constraints, and then to evaluate the economic and environmental effects of different nutrient budgeting strategies in animal excreta treatment.

In this study, a holistic integrated “ecological-economic” model is developed. It incorporates the systems of animal-crop production and waste treatment is developed for a pilot pig farm in China in order to simulate the economic and environmental effects of several nutrient budgeting strategies in excreta treatment for resource use.

The results reveal nutrient management deficiencies cause some serious environmental problems. The operations including biogas and composting are economically and environmentally efficient methods for manure management through nutrient budgeting strategy in an intensive animal farming with limited access to cropland. The nutrient budgeting strategy of constrained phosphorus, however, creates better environmental effects and brings more income from the waste treatment than the strategy of constrained nitrogen. The current standard of manure application in cropland which emphasizes on crop requirements for nitrogen should be reconsidered.

The paper is an original work and its methodology makes a meaningful contribution to understanding the relations between different nutrient budgeting strategies and their economic and environmental effects.

In an urbanising world, neighbouring is perceived to be steadily losing significance and a remnant of the past. The same belief can also be found in China where rapid urbanisation has had a tremendous impact on the social networks and neighbourhood life of urban residents. This chapter challenges the common perception of neighbouring in demise and argues that neighbouring remains an important form of social relationship, even if the meanings and role of neighbouring have changed. This chapter first charts the changing role of neighbouring from the socialist era to post-reform China. It then provides an account of four common types of neighbourhoods in Chinese cities – work-unit estates, traditional courtyards, commodity housing estates and urban villages – and considers how and why neighbouring in different ways still matters to them. In pre-reform socialist China, neighbourhood life and neighbouring comprised much of the daily social life of residents. Since the reform era, with the proliferation of private commodity housing estates, middle-class residents prioritise comfort, security and privacy, such that neighbouring levels have subsided. Nevertheless, in other neighbourhood types, such as work-unit housing estates, traditional courtyards and urban villages, neighbours still rely upon one another for various reasons.

This study aims to examine the effect of the Internet on irrigation system adoption. The authors implement the most extensive household survey of irrigation arrangements ever conducted in rural China and also exploit a public program to improve the quality of distance education in rural middle schools, which has led to plausibly exogenous variation in Internet access across rural districts.

The authors present a conceptual framework highlighting the transmission mechanisms whereby Internet access may affect irrigation system selection and identify direct effects through agricultural production and an indirect effect through non-agricultural production. To examine the effect of the Internet on irrigation system adoption, we implement the most extensive household survey of irrigation arrangements ever conducted in rural China. We also exploit a public program to improve the quality of distance education in rural middle schools, which has led to plausibly exogenous variation in Internet access across rural districts.

The authors find evidence to suggest that Internet access can effectively reduce information frictions and searching costs in the non-agricultural labor market, thus increasing rural households' participation in non-farm work. To save more hours from agricultural production, rural households select more labor-saving irrigation systems.

This study’s findings have important implications for the ongoing policy debate over government investment in Internet infrastructure to improve agricultural development in rural and isolated areas.

Fertilizer overuse is regarded as one of the main contributors to agricultural pollution and environmental problems in China. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate technical efficiency (TE) and fertilizer overuse index (FOI) with respect to China’s arable agricultural production and examine regional variations in terms of fertilizer overuse.

The maximum likelihood random effects–time varying inefficiency effects model was applied to estimate TE, fertilizer use efficiency (FUE) and FOI.

Over the study period (2011–2015), TE steadily increased for each individual province. Overall, mean annual TE was 0.811, implying that, on average, Chinese provinces could increase output by 18.9 per cent given unchanged levels of inputs and technology. Mean annual FOI ranged from 0.008 to 3.139, with a mean of 0.685, suggesting that there is fertilizer overuse in almost all provinces, and that large regional variation exists. Coastal provinces were found to have the highest TE scores, while the central region showed the highest degree of fertilizer overuse.

The results indicate that fertilizer use has had a significant positive impact on production in the China’s arable agricultural sector. High TE was not necessarily associated with low FUE.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a practical implementation blueprint for the attainment of food security for all Nigerians based on sustainable agricultural practices.

This paper conducted a critical review of 66 peer-reviewed empirical articles on various sustainable agricultural case studies. The evidence obtained from this review and the in-depth knowledge of the authors regarding the Nigerian agricultural landscape was used to develop a practical implementation blueprint for achieving food security in the country.

The food security for all Nigerians (FOSFAN) blueprint was developed and comprising of eight practical and interconnected steps. These steps take into consideration the synergistic effort of the government, the ministry of agriculture and its corresponding agencies in ensuring that farmers attain sustainable practices in their endeavour.

The findings of this paper will contribute to existing literature on food security and will also serve as a baseline for deeper empirical exploration of the impact of sustainable agricultural practices on food security in Nigeria (a country in the Sub-Saharan region).

The FOSFAN blueprint provides a practical and comprehensive step-by-step guide, which the Nigerian Ministry of Agriculture can use to achieve food security for all Nigerians.

This paper is addressed towards the development of food security plan in the Nigerian context in which the Nigerian Government ensures the availability of food to all its citizens in a bid to achieve “Zero Hunger”, which is the second Sustainable Development Goal.

The FOSFAN blueprint is a proactive guide that takes into consideration the importance of cultural and socioeconomic nuances in the development of a sustainable agriculture policy in a developing country context.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the importance of peri‐urban forests to the process of urban growth. The article aims at providing a brief description of peri‐urban forests' contribution to the improvement of people's prosperity in urban centres by means of reducing the negative effects due to urbanisation and improving the standard of living. Design/methodology/approach – The article adopts a descriptive approach and not a specific methodology. It focuses on providing a general review about the usefulness of peri‐urban forests in relation to urban development. In addition, there are presented figures about the number of peri‐urban forests in Greece as well as forest management issues. Findings – The environmental importance of peri‐urban forests is highlighted as well as their contribution to the reduction of soil erosion and the protection of inhabited areas. It also presents their importance to social growth and to the change in land prices in areas adjacent to peri‐urban forests. Practical implications – The appointment of the usefulness of peri‐urban forests for the improvement of the standard of living in urban regions can influence peri‐urban forests' preservation and protection perspectives. Originality/value – This paper provides a general review of the points of view concerning the importance of peri‐urban forests for urban development and the difficulties in managing and protecting them related to administrative and institutional issues in Greece.

This study aims to provide descriptive analysis on urbanization pattern in Sukoharjo Regency and also its correlation to land use and cover change (LUCC) issue. This becomes more relevant because the authors find that there are few studies conducted regarding the topic. Consider again the importance role of Sukoharjo Regency as an area that provides supporting food supply, LUCC particularly in agriculture land became even more crucial.

This study uses literature reviews and descriptive analysis. Data for this study are obtained from previous studies and statistical data from Central Statistical Bureau.

Sukoharjo Regency proved as an interesting migration destination for some group of population. The population group particularly come from Surakarta city (growth core) as a form of urban sprawl or urban expansion. Migrant population live in Sukoharjo Regency are mostly a population group with a productive age range and generally with high-school or vocational school level. Moreover, their main reason to migrate is the availability of job opportunities. Regarding LUCC, migrant populations that come to Sukoharjo Regency apparently have property with ownership certification. Housing area development, particularly concentrated in the district, was located close to the borderline Surakarta city.

This research contributes to the analysis of land use change trends in peri-urban areas caused by migration. The results of this study can be used for further policy making to overcome the dilemma of land use change, especially those that occur on agricultural land.

This paper aims to construct rental housing indices and identify market segmentation for more effective property-management strategies.

The hedonic model was employed to construct the rental indices. Using the k-means++ and REDCAP (Regionalisation with Dynamically Constrained Agglomerative Clustering and Partitioning) approaches, the authors conducted clustering analysis and identified different market segmentation. The empirical study relied on the database of 80,212 actual rental transactions in Beijing, China, spanning 2016–2018.

Rental housing market segmentation may distribute across administrative boundaries. Properly segmented indices could provide a better account for the heterogeneity and spatial continuity of rental housing and as well be crucial for effective property management.

Residential rent might not only vary over space but also interplays with housing price. It would be worth studying how the rental market functions together with the owner-occupied sector in the future.

Residential rental indices are of great importance for policymakers to be able to evaluate housing policies and for property managers to implement competitive strategies in the rental market. Their constructions largely depend on the analysis of market segmentation, a trade-off between housing spatial heterogeneity and continuity.

This paper fills the gap in knowledge concerning segmented rental indices construction, particularly in China. The spatial constrained clustering approach (REDCAP) was also initially introduced to identify regionalised market segmentation due to its superior performance.

Land is the basis for economic development as well as tourism development. There is a close relationship between tourism development and the land market. However, research on the effect of tourism development on land prices is insufficient. This paper aims to investigate the effect and mechanism of tourism development on land prices.

The econometric paradigm is the main research method. Fixed effect models, instrumental variable models and mediating effect models are introduced to examine the impact of tourism development on land prices. The data include three types: land transaction data, city-level data and scenic spot data. More than 360,000 samples of land transactions for 284 prefecture-level cities in China from 2007 to 2021 are applied.

Tourism development can significantly increase land prices. This conclusion holds after using instrumental variables to address endogeneity and testing for robustness. Meanwhile, tourism development’s effect on land price is influenced by land type, city type, city tier and city location. The land price increase effect of tourism is more significant for tourism land, tourist cities, central cities and Western cities. The paper also reveals the mechanisms of the public service enhancement effect, infrastructure upgrading effect and environmental optimization effect in tourism development’s effect on land price.

The study contributes to the literature on the relationship between tourism development and land market. The generality and specificity of tourism development’s effect on land price are revealed from the micro and macrolevel research level. The findings enrich the literature on tourism price effects, point to rational ways to optimize and regulate land prices and provide new ideas for land-market development.