| We are currently in a critical period of agricultural transformation and upgrading.The previous production modes that relied on excessive consumption of resources to increase agricultural output have caused agricultural development to face serious ecological and environmental problems such as increased surface pollution and declining soil fertility.In order to crack this realistic problem and alleviate the contradiction between resource constraints and agricultural production,our country has issued the Central Document No.1 for many years,proposing to change the mode of agricultural development and achieve sustainable intensification of agriculture.Farmland management eco-efficiency is a comprehensive measure of the proportional relationship between factor inputs,economic output and ecological impact of farmland production activities,and can be used as a major indicator of the degree of sustainable intensification of farmland management.Therefore,the search for pathways to improve farmland management eco-efficiency is necessary to achieve sustainable intensification of farmland management.As front-line subject of agricultural production,farmers’ production and management decisions directly affect farmland management eco-efficiency.Cognition is a prerequisite for behavior,and rational farmers tend to allocate their resource endowments based on their value cognition in order to maximize their returns,and thus make differentiated farmland management decisions.However,under the influence of the household contract responsibility system,the mismatch between the productive capacity of farmers and the scale of their management is widespread,which may lead to inconsistencies between cognition and behavior,thus weakens the impact of farmland value cognition on farmland management eco-efficiency.The farmland transfer,as an important way to mitigate the loss of factor mismatch,is also essentially a decision of farmers.Through the farmland transfer,the relationship between the various factors of production can be coordinated,thus optimizing the production and management behavior of farmers.Thus,the farmland value cognition may indirectly influence the farmland management eco-efficiency by changing the farmers’ transfer decision,and may also change the direction and extent of the effect on the farmland management eco-efficiency under the influence of farmland transfer.That is,farmland transfer may play a mediating or moderating effect in the process by which the farmland value cognition affects farmland management eco-efficiency.In summary,the article firstly,by sorting out the internal logic between the farmland value cognition,farmland transfer and farmland management eco-efficiency,and explains the internal mechanism by which farmland value cognition affects farmland management eco-efficiency.Secondly,the DEA model is used to measure and compare the farmland management eco-efficiency of different transfer types of farmers.Finally,a conceptual model of the impact of farmland value cognition on farmland management eco-efficiency is constructed using "farmland transfer" as a mediator and moderator respectively,and the data are fitted using structural equation model(SEM).The conclusions are as follows:(1)Farmland management eco-efficiency is higher in the study area for transfer households than for non-transfer households.Of these,transfer-in households are mainly improving their comprehensive efficiency by enhancing scale efficiency,while transfer-out households are improving their comprehensive efficiency by enhancing technical efficiency and scale efficiency.However,in general,the farmland management eco-efficiency of the study area does not reach an effective level.This indicates that improving farmland management eco-efficiency requires both optimizing the structure of factors and transforming the mode of farmland use.(2)Farmland value cognition can significantly improve farmland management eco-efficiency.That is,when farmers have a high level of cognition of the comprehensive value of farmland,they will adopt sustainable intensification management ways in order to acquire the incremental value of farmland resulting from the improvement of farmland quality,thus increasing farmland management ecoefficiency.However,the current cognition of the ecological value of farmland by farmers in the study area is lacking and still needs further improvement.(3)Farmland transfer can significantly improve farmland management ecoefficiency,but the positive mediating effect of farmland transfer between farmland value cognition and farmland management eco-efficiency is not significant enough for the study area.On the one hand,farmers with higher farmland value cognition do not have a stronger willingness to transfer in farmland due to the capital lock-in effect prevalent in farmland production activities,thus making farmland transfer-in not play a mediating effect between farmland value cognition and farmland management ecoefficiency.On the other hand,the negative mediating effect of farmland transfer-out between farmland value cognition and farmland management eco-efficiency is a masking effect.That is,farmers with higher farmland value cognition will enhance their endowment effect on farmland due to their stronger dependence on it,which in turn will discourage them from transferring out of their land,which will be detrimental to the sustainable intensification of farmland management by farmers with weaker agricultural production capacity.(4)Farmland transfer plays a significant positive moderating effect between farmland value cognition and farmland management eco-efficiency.That is,the impact of farmland value cognition on farmland management eco-efficiency in the study area is increasing as farmland transfer occur.(5)In the total sample,the effects of the control variables of household head participation in agricultural technology training,soil fertility and degree of farmland fragmentation on farmland management eco-efficiency are positively significant,positively significant and negatively significant respectively.However,there are differences in the effects of each control variable on farmland management ecoefficiency in the sub-sample.Based on the conclusions of the study,the following policy recommendations are put forward:(1)Various forms of publicity activities are carried out to further deepen and strengthen farmers’ comprehensive cognition of farmland value and encourage them to actively change their farmland management modes.(2)Stimulate the positive mediating effect of farmland transfer.Establish a platform for the farmland transfer and regulate the signing of transfer contracts,thereby increasing the rate of farmland transfer.Improve agricultural subsidy policies and increase the coverage of agricultural insurance,thereby stabilizing the agricultural production base,breaking the capital lock-in effect in farmland production activities,and encouraging farmers with higher production capacity to actively transfer in of farmland.Improve the evaluation system for the transfer price of farmland,further co-ordinate urban and rural healthcare,education and pension security,and strengthen non-farm skills training for surplus labor within farm households,weaken the endowment effect of farmers on farmland and encourage farmers with weaker production capacity to actively transfer out of farmland.(3)Strengthen the positive moderating effect of farmland transfer.The transfer of farmland with the main objective of optimizing the structure of factors and increasing labor and land productivity.Encourage farmers to transfer contiguous concentrations of land or exchange of farmland,effectively eliminating losses due to the fragmentation of farmland.Provide professional agricultural technical guidance to help transfer households master scientific farming methods and reduce pollution losses caused by farmland production activities. |
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