The Affection Of Agricultural Education On Agricultural Total Factor Productivity Growth: The Evidence From Zhejiang Province

With the constraints of resources and the environment is growing, the fundamental way relyon TFP growth, to maintain stable and sustainable development of agriculture, and the supply ofagricultural products in long-term.This study firstly from the macroscopic perspective using DEAmodel, analyses the Zhejiang agricultural total factor productivity change and the reasons. We found1990-2008Zhejiang agricultural total factor productivity grew by4.8%a year on average, the mainreason of growth is the technological progress but the technical efficiency improvement. Theagricultural total factor productivity changes and reasons are different for different regions;1990-2008period, the average growth of Hangzhou and Ningbo’s agricultural total factorproductivity is the fastest. The promotion of Hangzhou and Ningbo’s agricultural total factorproductivity is caused by technical efficiency improvement and technical progress, and the others iscaused by technical efficiency deterioration and technical progress. However, the σ test ofagricultural total factor productivity is not convergence in Zhejiang Province or in different typeareas. The gap between regions is gradually expanding.Secondly by building the variable coefficient panel data model, we test the impact of educationlevel, agricultural public investment and the regional market development to the regionalagricultural total factor productivity growth. We found that university education and primary schooleducation have a positive effect to Zhejiang agricultural TFP growth, but not significantly.Secondary Education have a significant positive effect to Zhejiang agricultural TFP growth.Agricultural loans, foreign direct investment and import and export trade have a significant positiveeffect to Zhejiang agricultural TFP growth. But Agricultural financial expenditure and rural fixedassets investment have a significant negative effect to Zhejiang agricultural TFP growth.thirdly using microscopic panel data, this paper build a stochastic frontier production modelbased on translog function. Empirical tests the affection of related factors such as education forfarmers agricultural management. And we get the follow results. Timing, regular education leveland land fragmentation have positive and significant effects for technical efficiency of farmers‘agricultural management. The proportion of non-agricultural income accounted for family income,bank credit supporting and agricultural technology training to farmers have significantly negativeaffections for technical efficiency of farmers ‘agricultural management.