It is now an indisputable fact that carbon dioxide gases cause global change. Although most of the carbon emissions come from the developed cities, as Chinas rural population accounts for more than half of the total population, effect of rural househoods carbon emissions on the global climate change can not be ignored. This paper takes the quality of carbon dioxide as the unit of carbon footprint, meanwhile, takes farmers of Zhangye in the midstream of the Heihe River Basin, Gansu Province, as an example. Based on the household survey data, the carbon footprints of local farmers were estimated, in addition, single-factor analysis and the Gini coefficient were used to analyze the structural features of carbon footprint in different ways of living. Conclusions are as follows: 1) The total carbon footprints of the farmers in Zhangye is 1.63*10~9 kg CO_2, and the per carbon footprints is 2.14*10~3 kg CO_2. 2) From the types of carbon footprint consumption, farmers carbon footprints mainly come from energy consumption, accounting for 83.70%, followed by housing construction, accounting for 13.50%, and then is the food production and processing, accounting for 1.89%, the last one is transportation, accounting for 0.91%. 3) From the view of the internal structure of the carbon footprint, there is great difference between the famers in Zhangye. Non-farmers carbon footprint is the largest, followed by part-time farmers, the pure farmers is the minimum. 4) Consider the fairness of carbon footprint possession, the largest deviation of carbon footprint possession is transportation, with Gini coefficient being 0.51; second one is the use of energy, with Gini coefficient of0.41; carbon footprint possession of food production and processing is more reasonable, with Gini coefficient of 0.35; carbon footprint possession of housing construction is average with Gini coefficient being only 0.12. 5) Population, income levels and non-farm conversion are the main factors affecting the carbon footprint, with the increases of population and income levels, also the deepening of non-farm conversion, apparently, carbon footprint of farmers continues to increase.