Whether Using Agricultural Machine Is More Efficient For The Farmland Of Small Farmers-empirical Analysis Based On Survey Data Of Rice Farmers From Five Provinces In Southern China

In China,agriculture is one of traditional industries.With the increasing opportunities to work in non-agricultural industries after the reform and opening-up policy,more and more farmers have c hosen to transfer to cities instead of staying in rural areas,which led to the rising agricultural labor cost and food crises.In recent years,C hina made efforts to promote the process of agricultural modernization which plays a crucial role in it.As the important matter in agricultural policies,mechanization makes it possible to improve the efficiency in agricultural cultivation,which means it could be a mitigation measure to solve the labor shortageand provide large-scale management with possibilities.Rice is the main food crops in southern area as well as one of the staple foods in China,its production could be accomplished by machines.Since economic and technical level has improved a lot,a growing number of farmers prefer to purchase agricultural machines or employ machine service to replace manpower to farm,which popularizes agricultural mechanization.There are many existing literatureexploring the development and problems of the process of agricultural mechanization from a macro perspective,but there is little research that the relationship between agricultural mechanization and production efficiency are discussed on the micro level.Most studies held the view that agricultural mechanization can effectively improve the production efficiencyfrom the perspective that machine could replacemanpower.However,this view lacks empirical testing.More importantly,the efficiency of production should be measured from multiple dimensions,not just from labor productivity which is the single factor productivity.Based on the data of input and output of cultivated land of small farmers in southern China in 2014,this paper selects the productivity indexes of multiple dimensions,including land productivity,labor productivity and TE(technical efficiency)which could be measured through the SFA(Stochastic Frontier Analysis)model.The influence of agricultural mechanization on production efficiency was analyzed by using Tobit model and technology inefficiency model.It was concluded that the relationship between agricultural mechanization and land productivity was negatively related while the effect of mechanization on labor productivity was significant.Besides,there is no significant effect of agricultural mechanization onTE.The characteristics of ho usehold,family and plots could affect production efficiency to a certain extent as well.In the end of this study,the sample data is divided into two groups according to the terrain,the relationship between agricultural mechanization and production efficiency of two groupswere studied respectively.It is further verified that under different terrain conditions,agricultural mechanization does not necessarily effectively improve the efficiency of production,but the significant positive effect on labor productivity is unquestionable.From what has been mentioned above,small farmers should properly choose agricultural mechanization according to the actual situation of household production rathe r than blindly follow the crowd.What's more,reasonablyallocating agricultural resources as much as possible is significant for farmers,so as to improve production efficienc y and obtain higher output of crops.The government should introduce effective measures to rationalize agricultural mechanization by guiding farmers to select farming methods.Also,giving farmers related subsidies could be an effective way to enhance their interestto be engaged in agriculture,which is beneficial to the development of agricultural industry.