The Research Of Farmers’ Behavior And Development Of Private Rubber Industry

Natural rubber, which is the irreplaceable strategic resource in significant industrial fields like aerospace, heavy-duty truck manufacturing and so on, has a wide range of function.At present,China’s natural rubber is heavily dependent on external supply, and huge market demand also promotes continuous development of rubber plantation industry of our country. With the national excellent rubber varieties subsidy policy, and the stimulation of international rising rubber price, private rubber industry is developing rapidly. Its planting scale and yield have already been almost equal to that of state-run rubber. As the important supplement of state-run rubber, private rubber plays an increasingly essential role in guaranteeing the supply of natural rubber in our country.Baisha county located in the central part of Hainan province,actively provides farmer households with technical and policy supports and encourages private rubber industry to develope at a foundation of taking full advantage of tropical climate and natural environment. Rubber plantation has become the pillar industry of agricultural economy in Baisha county, and it plays an important role in increasing households’income.In this paper, private rubber industry and farmers who planting rubber are taken as research objects. Macro data of industry development and micro data from145rubber planting farmers are collected. The degree of farmers’dependence on income from rubber is used as connection point to construct the connection between private rubber industry and farmers’behavior. First of all, this paper adopts co-integration model to analyze the effects of rubber plantation industry to farmers’ income.Then binary logistic regression model is established to analyze factors which influence the degree of farmers’dependence on income from rubber. With the assumption that the degree of farmers’dependence on income from rubber has positive impact to rubber planting behavior, this paper researches rubber farmers’planting and production behavior. At last, suggestions are put forward for the development of private rubber industry according to farmers’behavior.The research shows that there is co-integrating relationship between private rubber harvested area in Baisha county and rural per capita net income. Private rubber plays an important role in increasing farmers’income. Each unit increase in rubber harvested area will cause0.6025unit increase in rural per capita net income. Family size, tapping system and the degree of living improvement have significant positive correlation with the degree of farmers’ dependence on income from rubber. However, land scale and Technology learning attitude has significant negative correlation with the degree of farmers’dependence on income from rubber. Respondent’s age, degree of education, voluntary of participating in cooperative and government support have certain but not remarkable impact on rubber farmers’ planting behavior. According to the survey, factors that affect farmers’ behavior on investment of means of production include the scale of own funds, farmers’ preference to labor and leisure and industrial comparative economic benefits. The main factors that affect decision-making behavior of farmers’ planting rubber are land area and the level of capital and technology.