Study On Regional Specialization Of China's Wheat Planting

Regional specialized production is prominently effective on improving land productivity. Owing to their regional specialization production, wheat and wheat products in U.S.A., Australia, France, Germany, and Canada have strongly competitive power in the international market. China is a country with the highest productivity and consumption of wheat in the world. But for long, agricultural products are following "the complete small" operation model and scattered regionalized plantation, which lead to the low degree of specialized production, high production cost, low quality and poor benefit. The low degree of production specialization has been the essential problem restraining the development of China's wheat industry. Based on combing such theoretical development such as industrial division, specialized production, comparative advantage, and agricultural division, and summarizing the historical experience of the major wheat production countries in the world, this paper intends to analyze the current status and evolution characteristics of the regional specialization of wheat production in China, explore the key problems and difficulties, carry out policy implication research on promoting regional specialization of wheat production, and provide reference to and suggestions for government to implement agriculture economic management and to promote wheat industry development.The research conclusionsBased on the research purposes above, this paper applies such methods as literature research, comparative analysis, field study, and empirical analysis, and focuses on problems in the following five aspects:1. Research on the evolution of domestic regional specialization of wheat production. This paper surveys the concentration degree of wheat production in China from 1949-2009. It divides the development history of domestic regional specialization of wheat production into three periods, namely 1949-1978,1979-1997, and 1998-2009. It utilizes recent documents to compare the domestic regional specialization of wheat production with that of foreign countries, and analyzes the evolution characteristics of domestic regional specialization of wheat production.2. Systematic analysis on the influential factors of regional specialization of wheat production. This paper focuses on analysis and research on contents as follows:(1) Factors such as behavior role and risk preference of wheat farmers, the imbalance in wheat production benefit among regions, the demand trend for wheat, and material investment can, through influencing the decisions of producers, determine the internal mechanism with different specialization degree on wheat production. (2) The influence of varied distribution of production factors such as natural resources (region suitability for wheat), technology progress, marketization of regional economy, the length of land contract, and environment restraint on the efficiency of regional specialization of wheat production. (3) The prominent path dependence, externality, and accumulation of regional specialization of wheat production lead to the effect of accumulative circulation and continuous self-promotion. (4) The sustainable development of regional specialization requires support from effective mechanism arrangement.3. Research on relationship among wheat production cost, benefit, and specialization rate in major domestic wheat production areas. This paper compares the production cost and benefit rate in three major wheat production areas, namely Huang-Huaihai wheat-growing areas, the middle and lower reaches of Yangtze River area and Southwest area, and comprehensively utilizes various surveying methods such as DRCC,SAI,EAI,IAI,AAI to confirm the comparative advantages of the three major wheat production areas. It also determines the specialization rate of the major domestic wheat production, and analyses the relationship between production cost, benefit, and specialization rate.4. Research on the effect of regional specialization of domestic wheat production. The research adopts Engle-Granger co-integration test model to analyze the income growth effect of regional specialized production on wheat farmers. It is verified that it is favorable to farmer's per capita net income increase by enhancing the level of regional specialization of wheat production. On the basis of larger sample surveys and empirical research of wheat production in Henan, Hubei and Sichuan provinces, this paper adopts Cobb-Douglas production model, takes Henan province as an example, and carries out an empirical study on the relation between regional specialization of wheat production and land output productivity. Through analysis of the effect of regional specialization of wheat production (yield per unit, acreage, total output, wheat quality and technological progress etc), it is proved that regional specialization of wheat production has positive effect on wheat productivity.5. Research on the promotion strategy of China's regional specialization of wheat production. This paper researches on the influence mechanism of open economy on regional specialization of wheat production, analyses the vital role of farmers'specialized production cooperative organizations in promoting regional specialization of wheat production. It also measures the wheat production technology efficiency of the top 16 provinces or regions with largest wheat sowing area, explores division optimization of three major wheat-growing areas, analyses the internal mechanism on promoting regional specialization of wheat production through improving trading efficiency among wheat farmers, and discusses the appropriate degree of regional specialized wheat production. Based on these research and exploration, this paper proposes a comprehensive policy frame on accelerating regional specialization of China's wheat production.The research conclusionsThrough analysis, argumentation and research, basic conclusions are reached as follows:1. The regional specialization rate of China is not high. After a long-term agricultural product structure and spatial distribution adjustment, wheat producing areas have gradually shifted from relatively compact and concentrated areas to advantageous provinces such as Huang-Huai region, forming a distinctive wheat industry and regional specialization division pattern and advancing a further development of specialized production. However, the general regional specialization rate is not high. When the CR8 and SHII index are applied, China's regional specialization of wheat production is still in low concentration stage of development. The specialization rate of wheat production is generally low in the major wheat production areas except in the Huang-Huai region. Viewed from the perspective of production process specialization, the primarily shaped current regional specialization is based on "the complete small" agricultural products productive structure, the production scale is small, the standardization rate of agronomic procedure is low, there is non-close link between wheat plantation, sales, and processing, and the industrial integration degree is deficient. Therefore, the regional specialization rate of China's wheat production is at low-level and primary stage.2. There is uneven development in regional specialization of wheat production in different regions. Huang-Huai region has the highest specialization rate, with the average specialization index reaching 2.141 during 2007-2009. This far more surpass that of in the middle and lower reaches of Yangtze River, southwest and other major wheat-growing areas. And it seems likely that the trend will be further strengthened. The production scale and specialized degree in middle and lower reaches of Yangtze River is lower, with the average specialization index reaching 1.541 during 2007-2009. The specialized rate in southwest wheat-growing area is relatively low, with the average specialization index reaching 0.617, during 2007-2009. This index obviously lags behind that of the national average. In addition, the production scale and specialization degree is decreasing.3. The development of regional specialization of wheat production is jointly caused by multiple factors. Such factors as the imbalanced wheat production benefit among regions, the behavior role and risk preference of wheat farmers, the wheat demand trend, and material investment, can all directly influence the decision-making behavior of wheat producers, and indirectly decide the specialization degree of wheat production. The configuration of production factors in different regions, such as the natural endowment of the wheat plantation area, technological progress of wheat production, marketization degree of the regional economy, land contract duration, and regional environmental resources, decide the specialization degree of the wheat production area. The development of regional specialization adds to the specialized transaction cost. But appropriate mechanism arrangement from the government can largely influence the competitive advantage of the production area, and enhance the continuing development of regional specialization. The research shows that the formation of regional specialization casts a distinctively positive effect on the establishment of wheat producing technology system, and contributes to the development of the production chain. It has obvious features of externality, scaled economy, and knowledge spillover effect, counter-acts on the self-promotion of regional specialization, and leads finally to accumulative circulation system. Varied influencing factors acts on the formation and evolution process of regional specialization of wheat production in different ways and extent.4. Regional specialization casts a distinctively positive effect on wheat production efficiency. Regional specialization of wheat production concentratively plants wheat in the proper area, extends high-quality wheat in large areas, and adopts standardized plantation technology, thus obviously benefiting the yields per unit and reducing the cost. With the increase of regional specialization rate, wheat production gradually shifts to be concentrated in advantageous areas, which is favorable to bringing the advantage in natural resources endowment into full play, expanding the high-quality wheat variety, wheat production technology, and standardized plantation. In addition, this increase also contributes to the improvement of wheat quality. Regional specialization can stimulate the technology requirement of wheat production, alleviates the constraint of super-small scale land on technological progress, reduce technological expansion cost, increase technology supply, and form learning area of innovative wheat production, thus promotes the technological progress of wheat production. The empirical study on Henan wheat production area shows that regional specialization of wheat production contributes to certain degree to the income increase of wheat farmers, as well as to the unit wheat productivity. Therefore, regional specialization casts a distinctively positive effect on wheat production efficiency.5. There is certain risk in wheat regional specialization. There might be diseconomy in excessive regional specialization, which aggravates the natural risk, market risk, and technology risk of wheat production, and causes disastrous influence on the ecological environment and resources in the production area. Therefore, the degree of regional specialization should be appropriate.The innovationsThe innovation point of this paper is:1. Guidance and support from government are the key reasons for the formation and development of China's regional specialization of wheat production. Through financial investment, the government builds up high-quality wheat production base, improves soil conditions, provides technological support, and sets up special subsidy for high-quality wheat production, in order to guide the most appropriator production areas to concentrate their resources on wheat production, and promote large-scale wheat plantation in advantageous areas. In this way, the government pushes the formation of regional specialization of wheat production, and accelerates its development.2. Technological progress plays a vital role in promoting regional specialization of wheat production. The breakthroughs in breeding technology, plus with the concentrative plantation in the appropriate areas, have distinctively improved the specialization rate. Technological improvement is the key to further breakthroughs in regional specialization of wheat production.3. The market induction has played certain role in regional specialization of wheat production. The market demand expands with the price increase of high-quality and specialty wheat. And this expansion has certain effect on promoting concentrative wheat production in advantageous areas, and on encouraging large-scale plantation of high-quality and specialty wheat. However, compared with governmental support, the market power appears to be deficient.