Shizhu County Pepper Production Cost Research

Shizhu county is one of the important chili pepper planting bases in southwest China. Chili pepper planting has been an important pillar industry in Shizhu’s economy. However, even after more than a decade’s development, the pepper planting industry in Shizhu county still faces many problems in areas such as infrastructure construction, processing, scientific popularization, agricutural cost control. What’s more, it is also encountered with fierce competition form other chili pepper planting bases in Guizhou, Hunan and elsewhere. Compared with others, chili peppers from Shizhou enjoys no obvious price advantages. However, production cost is always the most important deciding factor in any market. Therefore, how to control the production cost has become one of the most urgent problems to be sovled in the development of Shizhu’s chili pepper industry.Drawing on Marx’s cost composition theory and cost analysis theory, this thesis starts out by analysing the cost structures in the production of chili pepper and makes clear the differences between chili pepper as an ecomonic crop and other ordinary agricutural produces in production cost. Then, the thesis goes to analyse the factors affecting the production cost of chili pepper in Shizhu county and discusses the controllable factors and cost-driving factors in its production cost. Through questionnairs, diagrammatical and empirical, qualitative and quantitative, and micro and macro analyses, the thesis vertically traces the fluctuation laws in the production costs in the recent11years and horizontally, it studies the composing features in the production costs in chili pepper planting of various types of planters. Based on the above analyses, the thesis proposes coping strategies as to how to effectively control he production costs of chili pepper in Shizhu county.The production costs of chili pepper is generally on the rise in recent years. Of the three types of chili pepper planters, those of the demo planting zones enjoy the lowest production cost, whereas those scattered individual planters the highest. The advantages of scale planting are obvious. Seedling cost, fertilizer cost, pesticide cost and labor cost are all directly relevant to the total production costs. Therefore, Shizhu government should take measures in government investment, building of bases and demo zones, the training of farmers, adjustment in ways of operation, and management of agricutural capital to control the production costsof chili pepper.