| The apple industry in China have tended to centralize in Loess Plateau and Bohai Bay in recent years,and these two main producing areas account for 89% of the total planting area in China.However,the cultivated area of the two regions showed distinct variation trends,Loess Plateau’s apple planting scale increases continuously while that of the Bohai Bay decreases gradually.The rapid rise in labor price leads to soaring production cost of labor-intensive crops like apples.Farmers will make reverse decisions on apple production due to the difference in the price rising degree and factor endowment across regions.Therefore,under the background of increasing labor price,studying the impact of labor price on apple production in the two major planting regions will help policy makers grasp the law of apple production layout change and give full play to the role of resource allocation.Based on the theory of induced technological change,this paper first calculates the technological progress bias of apple production through two-dimensional space coordinates analysis of single factor productivity and provincial data from 1990 to 2016,and analyzes the technological progress bias difference between two main production areas.Secondly,this paper studies the difference in change trend and factor input structure of apple production in two production areas by using trans-log cost function model.Finally,according to comparative advantage theory and agricultural location theory,this article employs the panel model to analyze the influence of labor price and factor input structure on apple cultivated area,and further verifies whether increased labor price affect the production layout of Loess Plateau and Bohai Bay.The research conclusions are as follows:(1)This paper employs K value to measure the technical bias of apple production in China.K value is the ratio of the rate of change of land productivity to the rate of change of labor productivity.The K value of apple production in China is generally less than 1,indicating that the Hayami-Ruttan type factor substitution and induced technological innovation have occurred in Chinese apple industry,and the development of apple production technology is more inclined to mechanical technology progress.Since Loess Plateau production area has a smaller K value,this region pays more attention to the application and promotion of agricultural machinery technology than that of Bohai Bay.(2)Substitution relationship between labor and machinery in Bohai Bay is not found,while this relationship exists in Loess Plateau production area.So famers in Loess Plateau can replace the relatively expensive labor with machinery and adjust the input of production factors more quickly to adapt to the increasing production cost.(3)The elasticity of labor-capital substitution has a significant positive impact on apples cultivated area,but the labor price is adverse related to the cultivated area of apples.An increase of 1 Yuan per day in the labor price(adjusted based on 1990 price)will result in 1085.3 hectares decline of the planting area.As the labor-capital substitution elasticity in Loess Plateau is greater than that of in Bohai Bay,and the price of agricultural labor in Loess Plateau is lower,we can verify that rising agricultural labor price does affect the apple production layout of two planting regions.According to the research conclusions above,the paper gives some policy suggestions.Firstly,grasp the law of change in apple production area and further optimize the apple production layout.Secondly,accelerate the research and development of labor-saving technology in apple production.Finally,strengthen the promotion of new labor-saving agricultural technologies and build an agricultural machinery social service system. |
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