Study On China Agricultural Productivity Incorporating Water Resource And Agricultural Non-Point Source Pollution Factors

As an important indicator of agricultural growth performance, agricultural productivity has attracted close attention of the academic research. So far, researchers use different methods to calculate agriculture productivity trying to describe the accurate agricultural economic growth mode of China. However, most of the existing literatures about agricultural productivity measurement only take account of the traditional inputs such as capital, labor and land, rarely taking overall consideration with resource and environmental factors which are closely related to the agriculture sustainable development. Sustainable development theory points out that resource and environmental factors are not only the endogenous variables of economic development, but also have rigid constraint to economic development speed. The traditional agricultural productivity measurement ignoring resource and environmental factors is a biased evaluation and is unable to reflect the real growth performance of agriculture.As we all know, China has witnessed rapid agricultural economic growth since the Chinese government started economic reform in1978, but serious destruction of natural resources and agriculture environmental pollution brought by the economic growth also attracts the world’s attention. The destruction of natural resources and environmental pollution has produced tremendous negative effect on the agricultural economic growth. With the increasingly outstanding problem of natural resources destruction and agriculture environmental pollution, China’s agricultural development is not only aimed at coordinating inputs saving and economic growth, but also must take into account of the natural resources bearing capacity and environment protection. Saving natural resources and reducing agriculture environmental pollution are the main issues in agriculture productivity calculation. In this context, it makes sense to take natural resources and agriculture environmental pollution into account when exploring China’s agricultural productivity growth. Under the background of building "resource-saving and environment-friendly" agricultural economic growth mode, our primary goal is to take water resource and agricultural non-point source pollution into the traditional measurement of agricultural productivity. We want to know the agricultural green productivity of our country when considering water resource and agricultural non-point source pollution. By doing this, we can obtain a "true" evaluation of China’s agricultural productivity growth and to promote agricultural economic growth in a fast and sound way. This paper is divided into six parts, the main contents and the related conclusions are as follows:Content1:Evaluating agricultural green productivity in China considering water resource and agricultural non-point source pollutionThis content applies SBM directional distance function and Malmquist-Luenberger productivity index to estimate agricultural green productivity (agricultural green technology efficiency and agricultural green total factor productivity) in China over the period1998to2009while accounting for factors about water resource and agricultural non-point source pollution. The major conclusions are as follows:(1) Ignoring water resource and agricultural non-point source pollution will overestimate the agricultural productivity. When considering water resource and agricultural non-point source pollution, the agricultural green technology efficiency and agricultural green total factor productivity is0.499and1.029respectively; while we don’t take water resource and agricultural non-point source pollution into account, the traditional agricultural technology efficiency and agricultural total factor productivity is0.636and1.051respectively;(2) If we don’t consider water resource and agricultural non-point source pollution, agricultural productivity accounting may overstate technology changes contribution, and technical efficiency deterioration. The agricultural economic growth mode and policy implication taken from agricultural productivity will be biased;(3) The overall agriculture green productivity is low, this implies water resource consumption and agricultural non-point source pollution has already caused great loss to the agricultural economic growth. China’s agricultural economic rapid growth is at the expense of natural resources destruction and agriculture environmental pollution;(4) Agricultural green productivity is higher in eastern regions than Centre and western regions. Centre and western regions present a resource-consumping and environment-destruction growth path. The coordination task of agricultural economic growth and environmental protection and resource saving is very difficult in central and western regions;(5) The agricultural green productivity is high in eastern coastal areas, such as Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai and Hainan. However, the relationship between agricultural economic growth and resource and environment is seriously unbalanced in the traditional agricultural provinces such as Hebei, Shandong, and Hunan and in the western regions such as Qinghai, Gansu and Ningxia;(6) The overuse of resources and the excess of agriculture environmental pollution emission are the main source of our country’s low agricultural green productivity.Content2:Testing convergence of agricultural green productivity in ChinaBased on the measurement and calculation of Chinese agricultural green productivity in content1, this content tested the convergence hypothesis of the agricultural green productivity. The convergence hypothesis includes σ convergence, unconditional β convergence, conditional β convergence, club convergence, stochastic convergence and dynamic distribution. The empirical results indicate that:(1) Agricultural green productivity shows no absolute convergence, that is agricultural green productivity regional differences will not disappear automatically unconditionally, but the remarkable conditional β convergence exists in the agricultural green productivity growth;(2) Results from stochastic convergence test show that the regional disparities of agricultural green productivity is not short-term and will exists objectively;(3) Dynamic distribution analysis shows that the mobility of agricultural green productivity is low. This again proves that the regional disparities of China’s agricultural green productivity will continue for a long time.Content3:Analyzing the influencing factors of agricultural green productivityThis content we use spatial econometric methods to find out the influencing factors of agricultural green productivity. The reasons for using spatial econometric method are that: firstly, as we all know, agriculture production has a strong dependence on natural conditions, the crop varieties and the agricultural production technology will be similar in adjacent areas, agricultural technology diffusion and technology spillover will be relatively easy; secondly, with the development of agriculture socialization service system, the technology spillover of the adjacent areas may be more obvious. The spatial econometric results are as follows:(1) There is significant spatial correlation of agricultural green productivity during the period range of the sample. The agricultural green productivity of an area isn’t distributed randomly, but is dependent on the adjacent areas which spatial characteristics are similar;(2) The geographical factor has significant impact on the agricultural green productivity. With the gradual perfection of the market system and the expansion of regional opening degree, the spatial fluidity of agricultural production factors is bigger and the connection between different areas is faster, all these will cause the spatial correlation of agricultural green productivity;(3) The risen of breeding industry proportion and the decline of planting proportion in the agriculture, the financial supporting policy and the agricultural product pricing policy, the widen of income gap between rural and urban, the enhancement of industrialization degree will lower our country’s agricultural green productivity; but the increase of agricultural irrigation facilities investment and the improvement of trade openness will promote our country’s agricultural green productivity.Based on the empirical study, the dissertation puts forward the following measures to promote the harmonious development between resource environment and agricultural economic growth:(1) Change the path of agricultural economic growth and build "resource-saving and environment-friendly" agricultural economic growth mode;(2) Improve the agricultural resource and environment management policy and make the integrated use of a variety of policy tools;(3) Strengthen agricultural technical training and promotion and promote regional cooperation.The research provides a complete analytical framework and method to measure the cost of resources and environment brought about by the agricultural economic growth. According, the research not only contribute to a more objective assessment of China’s agricultural economic growth quality, but also has some benefits to the construction of "resource-saving and environment-friendly" agricultural economic growth.