Abstract:
The effective evaluation of the development of creative leisure agriculture is significant to improve rural economy and increase rural income. Taking Hunan Province as an example, this study constructed a comprehensive index system to evaluate the development of the creative leisure agriculture. The index system incorporates four sub-systems: including resource environment, industry development, creative operations, and functional effects. The weight of each index were obtained based on the improved analytic hierarchy process. Finally, the level of creative leisure agriculture of Hunan Province were evaluated using the fuzzy theory. Results show that: 1) the overall score of the development of creative leisure agriculture in Human Province was 5.986, indicating the initial stage of development; 2) the unbalanced development was found in different regions: Changsha had the highest development level of creative leisure agriculture in the mature stage with the index of 8.411; several other regions, including Hengyang, Changde, Zhangjiajie, Zhuzhou, Yueyang, and Shaoyang, were in the rapid development stage; and the remaining regions, including Chenzhou, Xiangtan, Yiyang, Yongzhou, Huaihua, Loudi and Xiangxi, were in the beginning stage, such as Xiangxi with an index of only 4.712, the lowest one; and 3) the scores of four sub-systems in western Hunan were significantly lower than that of eastern Hunan. In conclusion, this paper suggests the following measures to achieve the sustainable development of creative leisure agriculture: to implement a balanced development strategy, to increase the innovative investment, to form regional characteristics, and to enhance environmental protection.