Comprehensive Environmental Regulation And Large-Scale And Agglomeration Of Pig Production

With the development of China’s economy,environmental problems have become increasingly serious and have gradually become a hot topic concerning people’s livelihood.Among the many pollutions,animal husbandry pollution has attracted more attention due to its non-point source pollution,especially the pollution of pig production.Since 2014,my country has begun to regulate livestock industry pollution at the national level.After that,various local governments have also issued corresponding policies to regulate livestock industry pollution.Under the condition that the intensity of environmental regulations in various places is convergent,does the production shift mentioned in the "pollution paradise" hypothesis still exist? After the comprehensive environmental regulation,a new agglomeration development trend has appeared in our country’s pig production.Is this development trend caused by the comprehensive environment regulatory policy? The strengthening of environmental regulations will increase the cost of pig production,which will inevitably be passed on to consumers at the cost,which may bring new social problems.In response to these issues,this paper mainly discusses the impact of comprehensive environmental regulations on the industrial structure of pig production(large-scale and agglomeration)from the perspective of internal and external economies of scale.This paper conducts a questionnaire survey of 488 pig farmers in 3 provinces and 1 city in the Yangtze River Delta to obtain micro data at the farmers’ level,and combines relevant statistical yearbooks and government-related document data,using fixed-effects models,2SLS,and Spatial Dupin Model,moderating effect model and other measurement methods to carry out research.The research content and relevant conclusions of this article are as follows:Part 1: Analysis of the convergence of the intensity of environmental regulations in China’s animal husbandry.Based on the understanding of the number of environmental regulatory policies issued in our country’s animal husbandry,it judges the cross-regional convergence of environmental regulatory intensity at the provincial and city levels,and analyzes theβ-convergence of environmental regulatory intensity in the same region in the time dimension.Through calculations,it is found that the Gini coefficient of the number of environmental regulation policies for animal husbandry at the provincial and city levels is decreasing,indicating that the intensity of the country’s environmental regulations on animal husbandry is gradually converging in terms of the number of policies.In addition,there is β-convergence in the environmental regulation policies of the same region,that is,the environmental regulation policies of the same region converge in the time dimension.Part 2: The spatial spillover effect of regionally differentiated environmental regulations and comprehensive environmental regulations on the number of pig production households.When there are regional differences in environmental regulations,as the intensity of environmental regulations increases,the number of large-scale pig farmers in the region will decrease and show a certain spatial spillover effect;but mid-scale and small-scale farmers will not be transferred due to the enhancement of environmental regulations,that is,there is no spatial spillover effect.Under comprehensive environmental regulations,as the intensity of environmental regulations continues to increase,the number of small-scale farmers in the region will show a downward trend,and the number of large-scale farmers will show an upward trend,and there is no spatial spillover effect.Part 3: The impact of the intensity of environmental regulations on the large-scale of pig production.As the intensity of environmental regulations continues to increase,the overall scale of pig farmers will continue to expand,that is,the intensity of environmental regulations can promote the large-scale development of pig farmers.Among them,the number of small-scale farmers will first rise and then decline as the intensity of environmental regulations increases;while the number of large-scale farmers will first decline and then rise as the intensity of environmental regulations increases.The emergence of such a trend is related to the initial equipment construction of small-scale and large-scale farmers and the construction of related equipment after the subsequent environmental regulations are strengthened.Part 4: The impact of the intensity of environmental regulations on the agglomeration of pig production.With the continuous strengthening of environmental regulations,the spatial layout of pig farmers at the macro-regional level will tend to gather;in addition,pig farmers will choose to be close to other farmers in the face of continuous strengthening of environmental regulations,that is,the level of agglomeration among households will also increase.Part 5: Research on the mechanism of large-scale and agglomeration of pig farmers under comprehensive environmental regulations.The study found that due to the comprehensive environmental regulations,the cost of pollution treatment for pig farmers has increased.In order to cope with this situation,pig farmers will reduce pollution treatment costs by leveraging the internal and external economies of scale in pollution treatment.When using internal and external economies of scale to reduce pollution treatment costs,the production of pig armers will show a trend of large-scale and agglomeration.In addition,the study also found that farmers who use self-breeding and self-raising and purchasing piglets for fattening tend to use the economies of scale within the pollution treatment equipment to reduce costs.Farmers who use pig fattening model will reduce pollution treatment costs through agglomeration.Based on the above research conclusions and practical problems,this article proposes the following four policy recommendations:(1)In the context of the convergence and increasing of the national animal husbandry environmental regulations and policies,each region needs to rationally deploy the pig breeding industry according to its own local conditions;(2)While maintaining the basic requirements of environmental regulation and not reducing,adopt differentiated environmental regulation policies for farmers of different scales;(3)In regions(such as provinces)where pig production is concentrated,the government should concentrate increase the construction of pollution treatment infrastructure;(4)It should provide different policy guidance for pig farmers with different breeding modes.