Agricultural Large-Scale Operation,agricultural Productivity And Farmers’ Income

Increasing farmers’ income has always been the core issue of the "three rural areas" and the fundamental way of China’s agricultural and rural development.The report of the20 th Party Congress clearly points out the need to broaden the channels for farmers to increase their income and get rich,and the No.1 document of the Central Government has put forward the goal of increasing farmers’ income for many years.At present,we are in a critical period of consolidating and expanding the achievements of poverty eradication and rural revitalization,and affected by the overlapping of old and new contradictions and changes in the internal and external environment,farmers’ income is facing the problems of low overall level,widening income gap,and farmers’ main income not coming from agriculture.In this context,continuing to raise farmers’ income,especially agricultural income,and ensuring long-term stable income growth for farmers have become key tasks in the new period to comprehensively promote rural revitalization and achieve a strong agricultural country.For pure farmers,the increase of agricultural output is the main way to increase their income,and the increase of agricultural output mainly relies on two ways:increasing factor inputs and improving factor productivity.Therefore,reducing factor input costs and improving agricultural production efficiency through agricultural scale operation are important ways to realize farmers’ income increase.Theoretically,agricultural scale enables the practical application of technological progress,which is conducive to enhancing agricultural production efficiency,and the enhancement of agricultural production efficiency will increase farmers’ willingness to operate on a large scale and promote agricultural scale.So,which of the two is the cause and which is the effect in promoting farmers’ income? In view of this,it is important to investigate the mechanism of agricultural scale and agricultural production efficiency on farmers’ income to further promote farmers’ income and form a long-term mechanism.To achieve the above-mentioned research objectives,this study follows the research line of " Problem formulation—Theoretical study—Current Situation Analysis—Empirical test—Countermeasure suggestions " and tries to investigate the mechanism of agricultural scale and agricultural production efficiency on farmers’ income from both qualitative and quantitative levels.In order to achieve the above-mentioned research objectives,this study follows the research line of "propose a problem-theoretical research-current situation analysis-empirical test-countermeasure suggestion".Firstly,through analyzing the current realistic background of China’s farmers’ income increase and combining with related literature,the scientific problem of this study is proposed;secondly,the important concepts,related economic theories and domestic and foreign literature involved in this study are sorted out and summarized,and on this basis,a theoretical analysis of the mechanism of the role of agricultural scale,agricultural production efficiency and farmers’ income is conducted and a research hypothesis is proposed;thirdly,through Then,we construct a stochastic frontier model to measure the agricultural production efficiency of farm households and use a dynamic panel data model to study the effects of agricultural scale and agricultural production efficiency on farmers’ income;subsequently,we construct a mediating effect model to test the mediating effects of agricultural scale and agricultural production efficiency,respectively;finally,based on the theoretical and empirical results,countermeasure suggestions to promote farmers’ income from the perspectives of scale and efficiency are proposed.The main findings of the paper are as follows.First,family-run small farmers are still the mainstay of agricultural production in China at present,and wage income gradually becomes the most important source of farmers’ income.Among them,the average arable land area per household in Hubei Province is higher and the land transfer method is more flexible,while the average arable land area per household in Shandong Province is lower and farmers are more inclined to engage in agricultural production alone.Shandong province has a higher per capita disposable income,but wage income is the main source of income for its farmers,while Hubei farmers’ main source of income is still agriculture,and its urban-rural income gap is relatively lower.Second,the disappearance of the demographic dividend has pushed agricultural development to gradually shift to production efficiency-driven,uneven and insufficient problems are prominent,and Hubei Province,which has a large proportion of hilly and mountainous areas,is weaker in the application of technological advances such as mechanization.China’s agricultural labor productivity and land productivity have been improving,but technical efficiency is still in the lower range.In the future,Hubei Province should speed up the research and development of agricultural machinery suitable for hilly and mountainous areas,and pay attention to seed industry innovation to realize the double improvement of technical efficiency and land productivity,while Shandong Province needs to make efforts to improve labor productivity and guarantee the "successor" of agricultural development.",but also to make good use of their own resource endowment advantages,and actively apply more advanced production technology to achieve a greater breakthrough in technical efficiency.Third,agricultural scale and agricultural production efficiency have positive effects on farmers’ total income and agricultural income,and negative effects on non-farm income.The increase in scale and production efficiency may give farmers higher expectations of agricultural income and attract them to continue to engage in agricultural production.Considering the reality that they are weak in non-farm employment and mainly engaged in low-end jobs,they may choose to work less and thus reduce their non-farm income.Among them,the elasticity coefficient of the scale variable is higher in Hubei Province,which indicates that the larger the scale of land is,the better the effect of increasing income in the face of the reality of larger average arable land area per household in Hubei Province.The elasticity coefficients of agricultural production efficiency do not differ much,indicating that its income-raising effect has a small inter-provincial gap,and even if the endowments differ from one place to another,promoting farmers’ income increase through improving agricultural production efficiency is still an effective measure.Fourth,based on farmers’ personal wishes to divert,to realize that those who wish to farm have their own fields and those who wish to work have jobs,in order to maximize the guarantee of farmers’ sustainable and stable income increase.The scale and production efficiency promote the increase of farmers’ agricultural income while reducing their nonfarm income,indicating that the "part-time" behavior of both working and farming does not give full play to its actual effect of increasing income.Only by gradually transferring land to farmers who are willing to engage in agriculture and encouraging them to gradually develop into new business entities such as large professional households and family farms,while eliminating employment discrimination,improving the working ability of farmers who are willing to go out to work and ensuring that they can obtain relatively stable jobs,can farmers’ sustainable and stable income increase be guaranteed to the greatest extent.Fifth,agricultural scale can directly promote the growth of agricultural income or promote the growth of farmers’ income through the intermediary role of agricultural production efficiency,which promotes the route of farmers’ income increase directly.About5.23% of the effect of agricultural scale on farmers’ income increase is achieved through the mediating role of agricultural production efficiency,however,agricultural production efficiency directly promotes farmers’ total income increase through increasing agricultural income,in which agricultural scale does not play a mediating role.In the process of promoting farmers’ income increase,it is necessary to correctly understand the causal relationship between agricultural scale and agricultural production efficiency,and to play the key role of agricultural scale well.Finally,based on the findings of the study,this paper proposes countermeasures to promote farmers’ income increase by encouraging innovative forms of land transfer,accelerating the cultivation of new business subjects such as family farms,carrying out mechanization enhancement projects in hilly and mountainous areas,carrying out seed industry innovation capacity enhancement projects,improving social service systems,and promoting vocational skills upgrading programs for migrant workers.