| Rural household' livelihood research is an important window for analyzing farmers' problems.Among them,income,consumption,and food security are important criteria for evaluating the development level of farmers' livelihoods.On the one hand,after 40 years of rapid development in reform and opening up,China's overall national strength has been greatly improved,and its economic aggregate ranks second in the world.In the new historical stage,imbalanced development has become a major problem facing China's socio-economic development,and this imbalanced development has been concentrated in the income,consumption,and food security of rural residents compared to urban residents.The level of livelihood development is still low.For this reason,how to improve the level of farmers' livelihood development has become the focus and fundamental task of the Chinese government in promoting national and rural socio-economic development in the new era.In addition,with the continuous deepening of the socialized division of labor and market-oriented production,China and the world's agriculture is rapidly developing towards the specialization of crop production.In 2019,the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China issued the Opinions on Promoting the Organic Integration of Small Farmers and Modern Agriculture.And the Strategic Plan for Rural Rejuvenation(2018-2022),and the 2020 High-quality Development Plan for New Types of Agricultural Management and Service Entity(2020-2022)issued by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs,point out that it is necessary to actively guide small farmers Specialized production to achieve high output and high efficiency on a small-scale basis,and requires qualified professional farmers to be included in the family farm directory for support and cultivation.Obviously,shifting from the traditional “small and complete” production mode to specialized production of crops is an important way and inevitable trend of China's agricultural development at this stage.As China is a major agricultural country,agricultural production is still the basic livelihood strategy on which most farmers depend,and it provides the most basic livelihood guarantee for farmers.Specialization of crop production,a farmer's production and livelihood strategy,is bound to be directly or indirectly derived from Different aspects and impacts on the livelihood development of farmers' income,consumption and food security in different ways.Therefore,in order to better solve the “three rural” issues and improve the level of livelihood development of farmers,it is necessary to evaluate the direction,degree,path and characteristics of the impact of the specialization of crop production on the livelihoods of farmers based on the microdata system of the farmers,in order to promote China's agricultural transformation.The formulation of policies and measures to promote the development of farmers' livelihoods provides realistic basis and decision-making reference.In this paper,the core research objective is to systematically evaluate the impact of the specialization of crop planting on farmers' livelihoods.Based on the micro-survey data collected by the rural survey team of the Hubei Survey Headquarters of the National Bureau of Statistics,a comprehensive literature research method,deductive reasoning method,descriptive statistics and measurement are used.A variety of research methods,such as analytical methods,are based on the theory of sustainable livelihoods,specialization of labor,farmer behavior theory,and balanced diet theory.They are examining the development of farmer farming specialization and the development of livelihood indicators such as income,consumption,and food security.On the basis of the level,a conceptual analysis framework for the impact of crop cultivation specialization on farmers' livelihoods was built,and it focused on the impact of crop cultivation specialization on farmers' income,the impact of crop cultivation specialization on farmers' consumption,and the impact of crop cultivation specialization on farmers' livelihoods is to test the research hypotheses proposed in the conceptual analysis framework.This article decomposes farmers' livelihoods into three dimensions of farmers' income,farmers' consumption,and farmers' food safety,and several specific indicators.The core objective of the study is to systematically assess the impact of crop production specialization on farmers' livelihoods.The micro-survey data of farmers collected in 56 counties(cities,districts)of Hubei Province in 2016 adopted a variety of research methods such as literature research method,deductive reasoning method,descriptive statistics and econometric analysis method,based on sustainable livelihood theory,division of labor and Specialization theory and farmer behavior theory are the theoretical foundations.Based on the conceptual framework of the impact of crop production specialization on farmers' livelihoods,the focus is on “the impact of crop production specialization on farmers' income” and “the impact of crop production specialization on farmers' consumption”,And “Effects of Specialization of Crop Production on Food Safety of Farmers” were empirically analyzed to test the research hypotheses proposed in the conceptual framework.Specifically,the research content designed in this paper mainly includes five parts: The first part is the introduction and outline of the full text,which mainly clarifies the research background and significance of this paper,systematically sorts out relevant literature,clarifies the research goals and content of this paper,and prepares for this paper.The research methods and data are used to illustrate,and finally point out the possible innovations and deficiencies in this paper.The second part is the first chapter of this article.It mainly defines the core concepts of crop production specialization,farmer livelihoods,farmer income,farmer consumption,and farmer food security,etc.,defines its connotation and boundary,and introduces the theory of sustainable livelihoods.Basic theories such as the theory of division of labor and specialization and the theory of peasant household behavior.The third part is the second chapter of this article.This part plays a central role in linking the whole text.Specifically,this part theoretically analyzes and constructs the specialization of crop production based on the research goals proposed in the introduction and the basic theory of Chapter 1.The conceptual framework of the impact on farmers' livelihoods will be empirically analyzed in the following sections within the scope of this conceptual framework.The fourth part is the third to sixth chapters of this article.The selection and quantification of the operational measurement indicators of the core inspection variables in the conceptual framework is the key to further empirical testing of the impact of crop production specialization on farmers' livelihoods.Therefore,the third Chapter mainly introduces the measurement indicators and calculation methods of crop production specialization and farmers' livelihoods,and quantitatively examines the status of crop production specialization and livelihood development of sample farmers based on the selected measurement indicators and micro-survey data of farmers;Chapters 4 to 6 Chapter in turn empirically tests the impact direction,degree,path,and heterogeneity of crop production diversification on farmer income,farmer consumption,and farmer food security.The fifth part is the research conclusions and policy suggestions,which mainly summarizes the main research conclusions from the content of the paper,proposes targeted policy Suggestions to promote China's agricultural transformation and promote farmers' livelihood development,and discusses issues related to the specialization and diversification of crop production and farmers' risks.The main conclusions obtained in this paper are: First,the specialization of crop production can effectively increase the income and total income of farmers' planting industry and reduce the income inequality of farmers;moreover,a large part of the role of the specialization of crop production in promoting the income of farmers' planting Imposed by improving the efficiency of planting technology.Second,the specialization of crop production can effectively increase farmers' food consumption,clothing consumption,consumption of other supplies and services,and overall consumption levels,and reduce inequality in farmers' consumption.Third,the specialization of crop production will reduce the dietary diversity and nutritional intake of farmers.Fourth,there is not only a direct positive or negative relationship between the specialization of crop production and farmers' income,consumption,dietary diversity,and nutrient intake,but there is also an internal relationship between them.This relationship is mainly expressed as the specialization of crop production can indirectly affect the increase of farmers' consumption,dietary diversity and nutrient intake by promoting the increase of farmers' income.Fifth,there is a significant difference in the impact of crop production specialization on the livelihoods of farmers in different quantiles,regions,and types of production.This is mainly reflected in the fact that although crop production specialization has a stronger income-increasing effect on mountain farmers.The negative effect of dietary diversity and nutritional intake of farmers is also the strongest.In addition,compared with other production types of farmers,the specialization of crop production will bring stronger dietary diversity to the permanent population of nonfarm households.Sixth,farmers have all kinds of livelihood capital of farmers income,consumption,and food safety also has the important influence,which,compared with other livelihood capital index,farmland scale overall is larger,the influence of the farmers livelihood especially for farmers farming income is greater than the influence of other indicators,show that crop production and specialization of farmland scale is to promote agricultural efficiency,farmers livelihood development the important path of two parallel.Based on the above-mentioned main research conclusions,this article puts forward corresponding policy recommendations: First,in the process of policy guidance and promotion of the transformation of farmers' crop production models to specialization,they should adhere to the principle of gradual progress and actively and prudently gradually advance,especially in terms of dietary diversity and nutrient intake,which have been negatively affected by the specialization of crop production As far as mountain farmers are concerned,they can appropriately slow down their professional transformation.Second,improve the technical efficiency of the plantation industry,and make greater use of the income-increasing effects of crop production specialization and its effect on the development of farmers' livelihoods.Third,in the process of progressively advancing the specialization of crop production,we should focus on and ensure the food safety of farmers in mountainous areas.We can appropriately slow down the speed of transition of agricultural production specialization in mountainous farmers,or adopt public nutrition and health fortified by crop nutrition.Interventions to encourage and actively guide farmers in mountainous areas to specialize in nutrition-oriented planting of nutrient-enhanced crops to avoid the problem of “hunger in wealth”.In addition,the improvement of dietary diversity and nutrient intake of farmers in mountainous areas can be enhanced by cultivating their livelihood capital.Fourth,for non-agricultural and part-time households(mainly the rural left-behind population),the quality of diet can be strengthened through informal education channels such as TV broadcasts,rural “family doctors”,mobile apps,and WeChat public accounts the left-behind population of each household conducts education and popularization of dietary nutrition knowledge and guides them to establish diverse dietary habits.Fifth,while promoting the specialization of crop production,we should also pay attention to the moderate expansion of agricultural land management scale,so as to realize the synchronous development of agricultural land scale and the specialization of crop production.Through the research of this paper,the basic value judgment of this paper is to gradually promote the transformation of crop production from the traditional “small and complete” self-sufficiency model to the direction of specialization,which is also the policy orientation of China's agricultural and rural development,and also conforms to the basic views of classical economics and emerging classical economics.Indeed,some scholars believe that diversification of production activities is an ideal strategy to guarantee the livelihood security of farmers from the perspective of risks and vulnerability of farmers.The dynamic perspective,but in the long involved in division of labor economy,engaged in professional production of crops is the farmers improve the level of family income persistence and an important means to enhance their ability to resist risk impact,this is the only thing that can make farmers out of the self-sufficiency of “low level equilibrium trap”,from a “vicious cycle of poverty”.At the same time,specialized and socialized service organizations for small farmers have emerged in recent years,and policy-based agricultural credit and agricultural insurance systems have been gradually established,all of which have provided basic guarantee for farmers to carry out specialized crop production.Therefore,no matter from the long-term dynamic perspective or from the practical basis,we should not worry too much about the risks and vulnerabilities brought to farmers by specialized crop production,such as those raised by some scholars.In addition,from a deeper perspective,the present crop production specialization can through improve production efficiency further release of surplus agricultural labor force,make the livelihood of farmers on the basis of the specialized form diversified activities,implementation of farm households within the individual level of specialization and diversification of family level professional unified,namely the unity of the specialization and development.However,with the coordinated promotion and indepth development of the new urbanization strategy and the rural revitalization strategy,the part-time business model will eventually exit the historical stage.The future development prospect of Chinese agriculture(especially planting industry)will be that professional farmers engage in specialized and large-scale production of crops. |
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