Farmers’ poverty has long been of global concern, mainly in poor rather than affluent areas. The goal of this paper is to better understand the range of poverty in the context of regional differentiation and to enrich knowledge on farmers’ poverty in affluent areas and areas with good natural conditions. A questionnaire survey of poor farmers in the major grain-producing area of Changchun, Northeast China was conducted. Farmers’ poverty was studied from income poverty and multidimensional poverty by intertwining qualitative and quantitative methods. The results indicate that low education levels and poor physical health were most prevalent in poor farmers, followed by income poverty and low living standards. Governmental policies and the macroeconomic situation in the agricultural sector, non-agricultural employment, aging, cultivated land, and family size correlated closely with farmers’ poverty. The macro changes in policies and global trade liberalization in the agricultural sector impacted farmers’ income through the prices of agricultural products and subsidies and influenced the effect of cultivated land. For poor farmers, the effect of employment opportunities in villages was more significant than in urban areas. Aging remains a challenge for farmers’ poverty now and in the future.

Introduction: Understanding the synergies and trade-off between the economy, ecological environment, and water resources is crucial to realizing the transformation and sustainable development of resource-based cities (RBCs).Methods: In order to identify and evaluate the situation, spatio-temporal characteristics, and impact factors of the regional water–economy–ecology (WEE) nexus, this study builds an evaluation indicators system of coupling coordinated development for the WEE nexus, and employs multiple methods including spatial analysis and the Tobit model. Panel data from 2010 to 2021 of six RBCs in Shaanxi, China are the basis for this study.Results and discussion: The results show that RBCs in Shaanxi have seen an overall upward trend in the development of their water economies and environments in recent years. The fundamental issue facing RBCs in Shaanxi is uneven and inadequate development. The coupling coordination levels of RBCs have increased, albeit at varying rates, and most are in the primary coordination stage. The ecological environment, industrial structure, scientific and technical innovation, economic development, and industrial structure are all beneficial; the urbanization rate, however, has not met the significance test. This study adds to the knowledge body regarding the development of RBCs worldwide and aids scholars and practitioners in understanding the development of RBCs in China.

Although rural livelihoods act as a critical mediator between poverty alleviation policies and sustainable outcomes, the spatial heterogeneity of this interaction remains underexplored within those agrarian systems that are crucial for food production. This study examines how China’s Targeted Poverty Alleviation policies shape livelihood strategies and the livelihood diversity of rural households across different spatial contexts in Jilin Province, a main grain production region of Northeast China. Using survey data from 2306 households, this study employs multiple logistic and linear regression models. The results indicate that (1) industrial and employment policies are associated with development-oriented strategies, whereas enterprise-driven and cash transfer policies tend to reinforce asset-based or welfare-dependent livelihoods; (2) these policy effects exhibit significant spatial heterogeneity, mediated by local agricultural productivity conditions, labor endowments, and off-farm livelihood availability; and (3) industrial policies show stronger associations with agricultural livelihoods in the east, while financial policies are more effective in sustaining agricultural engagement in the capital-constrained west. Integrating the Sustainable Livelihoods Framework with a spatial lens, this study shifts the focus of policy assessment from static outcome metrics to process-oriented analysis and reveals the mechanisms underlying the spatial divergence of livelihood strategies, providing a nuanced analytical framework for assessing the impacts of PAPs across diverse agricultural contexts. Based on these findings, this study highlights that spatially differentiated, livelihood context-sensitive policies are essential for securing sustainable and long-term poverty reduction in grain production regions, offering a replicable template for policy evaluation and practical implications for achieving SDGs 1 and 2 in agrarian regions.