Population migration, agricultural development and land utilization patterns in the Yangtze River Basin

Agricultural development in the Yangtze River Basin has experienced four stages: extensive cultivation stage, plain area developed stage by the immigration from the Yellow River Basin, mountain and hilly area developed stage by the interior migration in the Yangtze River Basin and the log stage under the huge population pressure. Along with the agricultural development, various patterns of land utilization have been formed, including growing cereals and economic crops, improving the ways for cultivation and developing ecological agriculture which played a positive role in relieving the problems caused by the conflict between excess increasing in human population and the shortage of cultivated land and food supply. The developmental tendency of land utilization patterns in the Yangtze River Basin shows that optimizing agricultural structure and adjusting agricultural developing model will be the major way to realize the agricultural sustainable development. Nowadays, the improving ways in land utilization in the Yangtze River Basin has provided an important experience for the stagnated national agricultural development.