| The grassland pastoral areas in China are areas inhabited by ethnic minorities,relatively backward in livestock production and lagging behind agricultural areas in terms of social and economic development,and are the key and difficult areas for the implementation of the rural revitalization strategy.Central Document No.1 for 2023 explicitly proposes to deeply promote the transformation and upgrading of the grassland livestock industry.Family operation is the most important organizational form of grassland livestock production.Whether family operation can fully participate in and adapt to the competition of modern market is one of the key issues in the transformation and upgrading of grassland animal husbandry.From historical experience,traditional herding households are difficult to combine with modern market due to the lack of scale effect.The herders are organized in the form of cooperatives to realize moderate scale operation,which eases the contradiction between small herders and large markets,realizes the organic connection between small herders and modern herding industry development,and can effectively promote the transformation and upgrading of grassland livestock production.Increasing the income of herders and the efficiency of the herding industry are important goals of the economic development of grassland pastoral areas,and are also important indicators of whether cooperatives can promote the transformation and upgrading of grassland animal husbandry.A large number of studies have shown that farmer professional cooperatives,as a new type of agricultural business entity,can effectively integrate and allocate rural social resources,promote agricultural modernization through large-scale production,and play a good role in increasing income and efficiency in agricultural areas.However,in the grassland pastoral areas,the development of livestock cooperatives is relatively slow,and most of the cooperatives that have started production and operation activities are still in the initial stage.What is the role of cooperatives in pastoral areas,where there are significant differences between the production and operation methods of pastoral areas and agricultural areas? What kind of impact do they have on the income and production of pastoralists? This is a question worthy of study and is of great significance in promoting the further development of livestock cooperatives and in implementing the requirements for the in-depth promotion of the transformation and development of the grassland livestock industry.This study takes the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau as the research area,and selects 546 herders in 16 sample counties in Gansu,Qinghai and Tibet as the research subjects to investigate the impact of livestock cooperatives on the herders’ income and production technical efficiency.First,the household characteristics,livestock production characteristics and participation in livestock cooperatives of the sample herders in the study area were analyzed through preliminary compilation of micro data.Second,the impact and action mechanism of livestock cooperatives on herders’ income were empirically analyzed using Extended Regression Model,and the heterogeneous impact at different income levels was analyzed using Unconditional Quantile Regression Model.Finally,Stochastic Frontier Production Function Model was applied to measure production technical efficiency of herders,and Extended Regression Model was used to analyse the impact and action mechanism of livestock cooperatives on production technical efficiency.The results of the study indicate that:(1)30.40% of the sample herders participated in livestock cooperatives.The livestock cooperatives in the study area are mostly organized by local governments and led by village cadres.The businesses provided by livestock cooperatives are mainly production business,purchase and sales business,with less information technology services provided.(2)Participation in livestock cooperatives helps to improve herders’ income.Compared with herders that did not participate in cooperatives,the total income of participating households increased by 30.5%,of which,herding income increased by40.0% and non-herding employment income increased by 33.2%.Specifically,participation in livestock cooperatives can increase pastoral income by reducing livestock mortality and improving by-product returns on the one hand,and increase non-pastoral employment income by increasing the number of non-pastoral employment in households and non-pastoral employment time per capita on the other hand.There is heterogeneity in the impact of participation in livestock cooperatives on herders’ income.The positive effect is more pronounced for herders of middle and higher income levels.In the long run,it has the potential to exacerbate the income disparity of herders.(3)The mean value of production technical efficiency of herders in the sample area is 0.419,which is low and has large individual differences,indicating the uneven development of herders’ livestock production.Participation in livestock cooperatives can significantly improve the production technical efficiency of herders.The production technical efficiency of herding households who participated in livestock cooperatives was 0.233 higher than that of those who did not participate.Specifically,participation in livestock cooperatives can improve the production technical efficiency by increasing the rate of adoption of technologies such as rotational grazing and artificial grass cultivation and by changing the way in which transactions are conducted and strengthening the links between herders and the market.Based on the above findings,this paper makes the following recommendations:(1)improve the grassland contract management system to ensure stable grassland property rights;(2)use cooperatives as a carrier to promote innovation and diffusion of grassland livestock production and grassland management technologies,and actively guide herders to adopt new technologies;(3)pay attention to the education and training of herders,cultivate new types of herders,and improve their ability to increase their income and wealth;(4)improve the quality and level of services provided by cooperatives and play a greater role in driving the development of herders. |
