Wheat Production Growth Pattern And Behavior Of Demand For Factors In China

Grain production is the foundation of agriculture, while wheat is a major grain crop in China. Recently, wheat production has apparently concentrated in several major regions. Therefore, it is important to speed up the transformation of wheat production patterns, achieve sustainable development of wheat production, continuously increase gain production and guarantee social harmony and stabilization. However, wheat production in China has been faced with the challenges of population increase and arable land reduction, frequent natural disasters, grain price fluctuation, and ecological and environmental degradation. So, wheat production patterns have to be changed so as to enhance core competition. As a result, the investigation of production patterns in major wheat producing regions will become one of the most important research areas in the agricultural economy in China.For this regard, this paper mainly investigates wheat production patterns and factor input behavior by using nonparametric and parametric approaches respectively based on the provincial panel data of wheat production from1991to2011. Specifically, comprehensive technical efficiency, pure technical efficiency and scale efficiency, as well as factor input slack adjustment, are estimated by using nonparametric DEA approach based on the historical wheat production data; total factor productivity is estimated by using the Tornqvist index approach for five major wheat producing regions; technological change, factor input bias and factor demand and substitution of wheat production are estimated by using translog cost function.The results show that wheat production patterns and factor input behavior can be simply summarized as follows:â…°) wheat production has apparently concentrated in five major producing regions in China; â…±) total wheat output is uniquely determined by wheat yield increase, which mainly comes from total factor productivity (TFP); â…²) the TFP improvement is mainly dependent upon technological progress, which is non-neutral; iv) the technological progress demonstrates labor-saving, machine-using, and fertilizer-using and-saving co-existence, which is determined by factor input behavior; â…´) in detail, factor input behavior appears to be bigger elasticities of demand for labor and fertilizer, significant substitution between labor and machinery, significant substitution between fertilizer and manure, as well as compensation relationship between machinery and other inputs, which are caused by the changes of factor price level and relative price.Given the above findings, to stabilize wheat production, transfer production patterns and adjust factor input behavior, the following suggestions are proposed:focusing on five wheat producing regions, grasping the dynamic of factor input; improving total factor productivity, enhancing the technological study for factor input bias, adjusting factor demand using price tool,, and optimizing relative price of factor input.