It is essential to develop the capacity of farmers in poverty-stricken mountainous areas in solving the problem of household economic development. The recent main elements of conditioning such Shaanxi farm households’ economydeveloping capacity include external environment, supportive policy, households themselves and so forth. An analysis by the model of comprehensive assessment indexes for the farm household’s capacity in economic development in Shaanxi povertystricken mountainous areas finds that the local farm households’ abilities to develop economy are generally weak. Under the circumstances of local incomplete market economy, traditional smallscale peasant economy depends obviously on external environment. Besides, under the effects of households themselves, there are prominent individual differences between farm households in ability to develop economy. Moreover, effective and sustainable supportive policies have profound effects on the raise of povertystricken mountain farmers’ abilities to develop household economy.

western povertystricken mountainous areas; farm household economy; capacity in development