A framework for assessing sustainable agriculture and rural development: A case study of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, China

The deterioration of the eco-environment and low well-being of farmers in rural areas have posed great challenges to the realization of sustainable development goals (SDGs). Coordination of food production, eco-environment, and farmers' well-being is a core issue in achieving the SDGs. Here, a conceptual framework and corresponding evaluation index system composed of agricultural production, rural environment, and farmers' well-being was introduced to measure the three dimensions of sustainable agriculture and rural development (SARD) and their coupling coordination in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei (BTH) region, a region containing a highly developed urban agglomeration with a surrounding poverty belt. The different impacts of urbanization on SARD were analyzed by geographically weighted regression. Most of the low-value SARD areas were in the northwestern mountains with low agricultural production and southeastern traditional agricultural areas with a lagging rural environment, whereas the high-value SARD areas were mainly in the suburbs of big cities with high farmers' well-being. Farmers' well-being lagged agricultural production and rural environment in most of BTH. Population urbanization had positive impacts on SARD, whereas improper land expansion and industrial development during urbanization had negative influences in rural areas. It is suggested to introduce effective policies to increase farmers' well-being in remote mountainous and traditional agricultural areas and decrease the damage of inappropriate urban development to aid BTH and highly developed urban agglomerations in coordinating development and achieving SDGs.