Research On The Effects Of Agricultural Mechanization Empowering Industry-Agriculture Coordinated Development

As the core component of agricultural modernization,agricultural mechanization provides key physical and technical support for agricultural production,and thus is a major mark of agricultural modernization level.Now,Socialism with Chinese Characteristics has entered the New Era,China has started the new journey of building a socialist modernized country.As the fundamental industry of the national economy,agriculture is a significant support and guarantee in this process;however,lagged development status in reality has made agricultural and rural sectors the shortest stave in China’s comprehensive,high-quality development.The 18th National Congress of CPC put forward the Strategy of Synchronous Development of Four Modernizations;the 19th National Congress of CPC unveiled the Rural Vitalization Strategy;the 5th Plenary Seccion of the 19th Central Committee of CPC outlined the mission of "Prioritizing agricultural and rural development "Building the new type relation of industry-agriculture mutual promotion,urban-rural complementation,coordinated development and common prosperity,accelerating agricultural and rural modernization",which has been included in China’s 14th Five-year Plan.All these indicate the urgency of improving weaknesses and drawbacks in agricultural and rural sectors,which however,cannot be accomplished overnight.As the combination of modern industrial technologies,material equipments and agricultural production,agricultural mechanization reflects the interaction between industry and agriculture and acts as a bridge that links both of them.Not only within agriculture but also beyond it,agricultural mechanization will in the future have multi-faceted status,effects and functions in agricultural and rural sector’s overall development and national economy.In agriculture,mechanization not only ensures food security and effective supply of important agricultural products through increasing productivity,but also has increasingly important influence on plantation structure,crop breeding and cultivation,giving rise to new technological innovations in IT-based,intelligent and green agriculture;more importantly,under the mechanism of inter-industry product-factor flow,agricultural mechanization has a significant place in the interaction between agriculture and industry and can,in proper institutional and policy environments,play its positive role to promote industry-agriculture coordinated development.This thesis takes China’s industry-agriculture relation as the research perspective and starting point,agricultural mechanization as the research object and promoting industry-agriculture coordinated development as the aim,trying to comprehend the requirements of coordinated development,precisely identify major problems in China’s agricultural mechanization development,explore mechanisms of agricultural mechanization empowering industry-agriculture coordinated development,investigate the effects,analyze the impetus and,based on the research findings,provide references and suggestions for China’s agricultural mechanization,agricultural and rural modernization and industry-agriculture coordinated development.This thesis adopts the dual economy theory in development economics,theory of induced technological innovation,theory of optimal production factors combination,Marxist industry-agriculture relation theory and industrial policy theory,and summarizes existing Chinese and international literature on industry-agriculture relation and agricultural mechanization;reviews the evolution of China’s industry-agriculture relation and development of agricultural mechanization,summarizes institutional and policy barriers in coordinated development,driving factors of agricultural mechanization and mechanism of agricultural mechanization promoting coordinated development,measures the level of agricultural mechanization and coordinated development;builds a Tobit model and analyzes agricultural mechanization’s effects on promoting industry-agriculture coordinated development,and further discusses current characteristics of China’s industry-agricultural relation,barriers in coordinated development and future institutional and policy reforms;investigates the implementation forms,responses and effects of China’s agricultural machinery subsidy in different regions through Granger causality test,and gives suggestions on policy adjustment and optimization.Findings of the thesis are as follows:Firstly,China’s industry-agriculture coordinated development level since 2004 has shown a rising trend,but still has ample room for improvement.Low agricultural productivity,low input level and low technological support level are the major obstacles in coordinated development.In general,China is still in the middle and later period of "agriculture supporting industry";in some areas,overall economic growth fails to effectively promote coordinated development because development of industry and service take more from agriculture than give to it,and links among industries are not close;meanwhile,urbanization shows its effects on promoting coordinated development,especially in western provinces.Secondly,China’s industry-agriculture coordinated development is subject to institutional and policy barriers,and as well there exist technical obstacles.Existing problems in rural land system,household registration system and administrative system restricts agricultural mechanization’s high-quality development and industry-agriculture coordinated development;agricultural machinery’s effects on technical efficiency and economic benefit are not satisfactory,which indirectly reflects the unequal exchange relation between agricultural and industrial products,the large development gap between agriculture and industry and institutional/policy barriers in scale operation and rural labor’s substantial transfer.The aim of agricultural modernization and coordinated development necessitates extensive and comprehensive institutional reforms,thereby optimizing policy contexts for more equitable,all-around development of agriculture and rural areas.Thirdly,highly consistent internal mechanisms make agricultural mechanization an effective approach that empowers industry-agriculture coordinated development.As the direct form of"industry repaying agriculture",agricultural mechanization strengthens the capacities of"agriculture supporting industry",thereby exerting positive influences on various aspects and factors of industry-agriculture coordinated development.Such influences are through multiple paths with different effects.Empirical analysis shows:increasing agricultural machinery and its service cost input cannot promote industry-agriculture coordinated development,which,instead of denying the necessity of strengthening agricultural machinery equipment,actually reflects the unequal exchange relation between agricultural and industrial products as well as agriculture’s low development level and low comparative gain;cross-regional operation has some effect on promoting coordinated development,which is also influenced by changes of social and economical conditions;increasing agricultural machinery’s service efficiency,developing socialized service and optimizing agricultural machinery purchase subsidy policy can effectively promote coordinated development and particularly,effects of agricultural machinery purchase subsidy are regionally different.All these empirical findings indicate that the key of agricultural mechanization empowering industry-agriculture coordinate development lies in increasing both efficiency and availability of agricultural machinery,and also reflects the small operation scale,low comparative gain and specialization level that are still faced by China’s agriculture.Therefore,in order for the parallel improvement of agriculture’s technical efficiency and economic benefit,it is more important to break institutional and policy barriers against industry-agriculture coordinated development.Lastly,agricultural machinery purchase subsidy policy has provided significant impetus for China’s agricultural mechanization and industry-agriculture coordinated development,and should be adjusted and optimized in the future.Subsidy policy’s implementation form,response and effects vary greatly across regions,therefore it should be adjusted and optimized in a regional-specific manner;meanwhile,transformation,upgrading and technological innovations in agricultural machinery industry should also be promoted,in order to provide more substantial support for high-qualith agricultural mechanization development.In general,China should further improve and optimize agricultural support policies,creating a more beneficial institutional and policy environments for agricultural mechanization and agricultural/rural modernization;increase both efficiency and availability of agricultural machinery,dialectically unifying technical efficiency and economic benefit;adopt differentiated agricultural machinery subsidy policies,stimulate transformation and upgrading of agricultural machinery industry,expanding and guiding demand while enhancing effective supply,in order to better promote high-quality development of agricultural mechanization and strengthen its empowering effcts on industry-agriculture coordinated development.