Abstract: Planting(small agriculture in farming systems)and animal husbandry are two main parts in agricultural systems and the coordinated development between them is propitious to realize modern agriculture. Tarim River Basin is an important agricultural producing area in Xinjiang, and the coordinated development of planting and animal husbandry will help promote the process of agricultural modernization and increase the farmers'income there. Firstly, the paper selected 16 evaluation indicators from the three aspects of ecological, social and economic resources to determine the evaluation index system of coupling level of agriculture and animal husbandry of the Tarim River Basin. Secondly, it improved "Variation Coefficient" of statistics and establishes the model of the coupling and the coupling coordination degrees of agriculture and animal husbandry of the Tarim River Basin. Finally, based on a continuous distribution function to specify evaluation standards and types, and employing the statistical data from 2003 to 2014, the paper quantitatively analyzed the coupling degree, coordination degree of planting and livestock systems, and the types of agriculture and animal husbandry of the Tarim River Basin. The findings indicate there is a high degree of coupling agriculture and animal husbandry of Tarim River Basin, but the degree of coupling is developing and changing, and there exists a larger difference in the coupling coordination types in different years. On the basis of the analysis, the conclusions could be drawn as follows:traditional agricultural characteristics are very significant in the region; there exists certain difficulties in the coordinated development of the plant and livestock's coupling; the coupling is still at simple and primary stage and the potential of advanced coupling development is insufficient; policies have great influence on the coupling between agriculture and animal husbandry in Tarim River Basin. The paper established a model to simulate the trajectory of the change and development of agriculture and animal husbandry as well as the coupling coordination degree between them in Tarim River Basin, which has certain guiding significance to understand and grasp the status of watershed development of agriculture and animal husbandry, and even to promote the relationship between agriculture and animal husbandry.

Key words: farming systems, coupling model, coupling coordination degree, Tarim River Basin, Xinjiang