Impact Of Outsourcing On Agriculture Green Development

Faced with the scarce agricultural resource,prominent ecological and environmental problems,degraded ecosystem functions,and the resulting severe food security problems,the agriculture green development has become the general direction and general goal of transformation and upgrading of China’s agricultural development.However,the adsorption effect in urban expansion and the strong attraction of non-agricultural income have aggravated the problems of aging and structural shortage of agricultural labor,hindering the process of green development of Chinese agriculture.Under these realistic constraints,Chinese farmers have spontaneously formed an agricultural production service outsourcing purchase model with Chinese characteristics,which is mainly based on agricultural machinery services and supplemented by hired labor.Its advantages of effectively alleviating the shortage of labor,machinery,equipment,knowledge,and skills,and being easily accepted by farmers,have played an important role in promoting agricultural production,especially grain production,and has not only greatly changed the production and life style of Chinese farmers,has become an irreversible development trend of Chinese agriculture,but also brought an important historical opportunity to realize agricultural green development.Accordingly,the government has introduced a series of policies and measures to promote and support the development of outsourcing,and actively promote the deep integration of outsourcing and agricultural green development,but it is not yet known whether the real performance of outsourcing is consistent with policy expectations.Academics have also conducted a lot of research on the issue of outsourcing agricultural production.However,theoretical research is still lagging practical experience,a systematic analysis framework has not yet been formed to explore whether and how outsourcing affects agricultural green development,and the benefits and mechanisms from economic,environmental,and technological dimensions of outsourcing are still unclear.Therefore,it is necessary to conduct a systematic analysis of the impact of outsourcing on the agriculture green development in terms of both the realistic backgrounds,policy backgrounds,and theoretical backgrounds.In view of this,this paper designed the technical roadmap according to the research ideas of problem formulation,theoretical analysis,current situation analysis,empirical analysis,and policy analysis.First,the scientific question of this paper,namely,whether and how outsourcing affect agricultural green development,is proposed in three dimensions of realistic background,policy background,and theoretical background,which corresponding to Chapter1 of this paper.Second,based on defining the research object and core concepts,and sorting out the relevant theories,this paper characterized the agriculture green development in three dimensions of economic,environmental,and technological(the selection of these three dimensions comes from sorting out the basic connotation of agricultural green development,policy expectations of agricultural green development in China,and benefit impact mechanisms),and constructed a theoretical analysis framework of the impact of outsourcing on agriculture green development,which corresponding to Chapter 2 of this paper.Thirdly,this paper examined the development of outsourcing agricultural production in China at the macro level by sorting out the background,development,evolution,supply-demand situation,and the dilemma of outsourcing in China,and designed a sample survey program to obtain data for a statistical analysis at the micro-farm level on the current status characteristics of outsourcing,agricultural output,farm income,agrochemical input,and agro-environmental technical efficiency,which corresponding to Chapters 3 and 4 of this paper.Fourthly,this study empirically evaluated the impact of outsourcing on agricultural green development in terms of economic,environmental,and technological benefits,using field research data from 1208 households in major grain-producing regions of China and a combination of multiple linear regression,conditional mixed process approach,instrumental variables approach,instrumental variables quantile regression,SBM-Undesirable model,propensity score matching,and mediating effects test model.The results of the study were based on "the effects of outsourcing on agricultural output and farm household income","the effects of outsourcing on agrochemical inputs",and "the effects of outsourcing on agricultural environmental technical efficiency",which corresponding to Chapter 5～7 of this paper.Finally,policy recommendations were put forward to improve the development planning of the outsourcing service industry and promote agriculture green development,based on the conclusion of the qualitative analysis and quantitative research,and also summarized the research shortcomings and propose the future research outlook,which corresponding to Chapter 8 of this paper.The main research findings of this paper are as follows.(1)The economic benefits of outsourcing are obvious,outsourcing not only improves the agricultural output of farmers but also raises the level of their household income.Outsourcing provides a basis for the realization of environmental and technological benefits of agricultural green development.First,outsourcing has a significant productivity-enhancing effect.For the overall estimates,outsourcing contributed to the agricultural output of farmers.This conclusion still holds after addressing the underlying endogeneity issue.For the sub-sample estimates of maize,wheat,and rice,the impact of outsourcing on agricultural output is still relatively stable in corn and rice,but the effect on wheat is not obvious.Second,outsourcing has an obvious revenue-raising effect,mainly through labor substitution to increase the level of non-farm employment and non-farm income of farmers,thus promoting the growth of total income.However,there are two problems in the process of outsourcing to promote the increase of production and income of farmers.First,the revenue-raising effect of outsourcing is more obvious for middle-income and high-income farmers,which widens the income gap among farmers,and this widening effect mainly comes from the advantage of outsourcing to the nonfarm income of the middle-income and high-income groups.Second,focusing on agriculture itself,outsourcing also leads to the failure of the agricultural revenue-raising effect,showing the characteristics of increased production without increased income,which may be not conducive to the long-term development of agriculture.(2)The environmental benefits of outsourcing are beginning to emerge and can improve the utilization efficiency of agrochemical inputs by increasing their frequency,but it fails to solve the problem of excessive agrochemical inputs and even leads to a further increase in the intensity of agrochemical inputs.First,for the overall estimates,outsourcing significantly increases the frequency and intensity of agrochemical inputs,which is conducive to the improvement of agrochemical utilization efficiency but not to the reduction of agrochemical application,and this conclusion still holds after addressing the underlying endogeneity issue.Second,the mechanism for an increase in agrochemical inputs intensity due to outsourcing was explored,it is more likely to be caused by inhibiting farmers’ investment in soil improvement measures.Third,for the sub-sample estimates of maize,wheat,and rice,the conclusion that outsourcing significantly favors improved agrochemical use efficiency and is not conducive to agrochemical application reduction,remains robust across crop types.Finally,for the sub-sample estimates of Heilongjiang,Henan,and Hunan,the conclusion that outsourcing significantly increases the input frequency of agrochemicals and thus contributes to the improvement of the utilization efficiency remains robust in Henan and Hunan provinces,but outsourcing reduces the input frequency of agrochemicals in Heilongjiang province.Moreover,the conclusion that outsourcing significantly increases the input intensity of agrochemicals and thus is detrimental to the reduction of agrochemicals remains robust in Heilongjiang and Hunan provinces,but the effect of outsourcing on the intensity of agrochemical inputs in Hunan province is not significant.(3)The technical benefits of outsourcing have great potential,as the level of outsourcing increases,the agricultural environmental technical efficiency shows a trend of first decreasing and then increasing.First,the average value of agricultural environmental technical efficiency in the main grain-producing areas of China was 0.627,which was only slightly above the "passing line" level,and there were differences between regions and crops.Among them,the mean values of agricultural environmental technical efficiency of Heilongjiang,Henan,and Hunan were 0.701,0.648,and 0.528,respectively,with more obvious differences among provinces;the mean values of agricultural environmental technical efficiency of corn,wheat,and rice were 0.675,0.698,and 0.548,respectively,with the efficiency values of corn and wheat being closer,and the efficiency values of rice being significantly lower than those of corn and wheat.Second,the relative magnitudes of the factor substitution effect,optimal allocation effect,technology introduction effect,external learning effect,moral hazard effect,and input overload effect determine a robust "U" shaped relationship between outsourcing and agricultural environmental technical efficiency.That is,agricultural environmental technical efficiency decreases and then increases as the level of outsourcing increases.But,at present,the average value of outsourcing in China’s main grain-producing areas is only 198RMB/mu/year,which is at the stage of low outsourcing level,and the purchase of outsourcing significantly reduces the level of agricultural environmental technical efficiency of some farmers,In other words,the development of China’s agricultural production service outsourcing industry has a certain degree of inappropriateness,presenting the phenomenon that outsourcing does not match the goal of agricultural green development.Finally,the results of sub-regions and sub-crops also basically affirmed the U-shaped relationship,but for the Hunan region and wheat production,the U-shaped relationship was not obvious,and the focus was on corn,only a significant negative linear relationship was shown between outsourcing and agricultural environmental technical efficiency.In summary,outsourcing can improve agricultural output,household income level,agrochemical utilization efficiency,and agricultural environmental technical efficiency of farmers,which has obvious economic benefits,initial environmental benefits,and great potential for technical benefits,and can help realize agricultural green development.However,the current level of outsourcing in China’s major grain-producing areas still lags the realistic needs of the agricultural green development,low-level outsourcing can reduce agricultural environmental technical efficiency,and outsourcing also widens the income gap among farmers which to a certain extent and increases the intensity of agrochemical inputs.Based on the above findings,this study proposed policy recommendations,three play,three emphases,a promotion,a strengthening,and a perfect,to promote agriculture green development in terms of addressing and overcoming the problems of outsourcing,increasing agricultural output,improving farmers’ income,optimizing agrochemical inputs,and improving the agriculture environmental technical efficiency.The possible innovation of this paper are:(1)Enriching the theoretical analysis system of breaking the double constraints of agricultural production resources and farmers’ behaviors from the perspective of services;(2)Enriching the research subjects in the field related to the impact and benefits of outsourcing and strengthening the guiding role for the practice of agricultural green development;(3)Enriching the research practice of promoting common prosperity,agrochemical reduction,and synergy of economic and environmental from the perspective of production service marketization.