A Study On The Competitiveness Of Chinese Rice Sector And Its Determants

Rice is one of the three main grains in China and plays an important role in China's food security.China has been adopted minimum purchase price policy to ensure rice production.But as the rising of the food production cost,the price of rice's minimum purchase price continues to hit the ‘ceiling'.Meanwhile,rice prices in the international market have been falling.China's support policy makes huge price difference between Chinese domestic and abroad price which leaded to a large number of rice imported into China's domestic market.The Chinese domestic grain storage has also been at a high level.The double pressure from rising cost of food production and growth of import from the international market make Chinese government had to face the dilemma that the quantity of production,import,and inventory increasing together.To improve the food competitiveness of Chinese rice industry and accelerate the structural reform of agricultural supply side has become the main reform direction of the current Chinese government.In the above background,this paper analysis China's rice industry competitiveness in both a macro and micro perspective.The main research contents are as follows: Firstly,review China's rice industry development and related support policies;Secondly,the standardized indicator was used to quantitatively analyze the competitiveness of Chinese rice from the perspective of international trade,and analyze the reasons for different competitive advantages of different countries from the perspectives of natural endowment,industrial structure and government support policies.Thirdly,comparative analysis is made on the value chain cost and each link cost between China and the world's major rice producing countries from the perspective of value chain.Fourthly,construct the translog cost and factor demand function to studies the influence factors of farmers' production link and rice processing link quantitatively.Based on the above research,the paper draws the following conclusions: Firstly,the standardized indicative competition index of China's rice industry keeps declining,the production cost rises rapidly,the restriction of land and water,the lack of industrialization level,and the domestic policy intervention are the main reasons for restricting the improvement of China's rice competitiveness.Secondly,the total cost of China's rice value chain is higher than that of other major rice producing countries and does not have cost competitiveness.The cost of the farmers link and retailers link is high,but the middle of rice value chain has potential competitive advantage.Thirdly,increasing yield can significantly reduce the production cost of rice,but planting scale cannot significantly reduce production cost.The regional natural endowment and the development of factor market make the effects of the factors such as household characteristics and land management situation on the two regions are different.Labor prices are the biggest driver of costs in both regions.Total output,learning new technologies and land quality have a greater impact on the product costs in Jiangxi province while the number of agricultural technicians training times,whether there is non-agricultural work and total production in Guangxi region.Fourthly,rice processing plants have economies of scale and establishment of brands,the formation of contractual relationships with farmers,the private nature of operation can reduce the average processing cost of rice,and thus improve the cost competitiveness of processing links.At the end of the article we put forward the following suggestions: In the first,further improve the rice support policy,actively make good use of both international and domestic market in the macro level;In second,we should pay attention to the development of the whole value chain and improve the overall competitiveness of the rice value chain from the micro level.Thirdly,in the production process,various measures should been taken to reduce the cost of rice production such as increasing the mechanization rate of rice planting,taking appropriate scale to product,increasing training,improving the quality of cultivated land,thus improve the cost competitiveness of rice.Finally,in the processing sector,improve the support policy of rice processing industry and promote the upgrading of processing equipment.Taking advantage of scale effect,establishing the brand,forming contract relationship with the farmers can improve the cost competitiveness of China's rice processing sector.