Study On The Difficulties Of Cotton Production Recession In Shandong Province And The Coping Strategies

Shandong Province is one of the major provinces specialize in cotton producing and processing, whose cotton cultivation area account for about 15% of the national level, as well as its cotton production, second only to Xinjiang. As an important cash crop, cotton planting is a pillar industry of farmers’ income increase and cotton region development in Shandong, who plays a significant role in crop planting structure. In recent years, however, Shandong province has experienced dramatic drops in cotton planting area, it declined from 13.94 million mu in 2006 to 8.89 million mu in 2014, shrinking by 36.2%, Gradually lost its comparative advantages in the nationwide.More and more recession phenomenons have appearred, such as " cotton planting change to grain ", " pull cotton to plant wheat " and "cotton fields abandonment". Contrasted the prosperity of cotton production in the 1980 s, the paper draw that Shandong cotton production has been in a severe recession in recent years, and the recession will continue without timely strategies and implements.Based on its importance on national economy and people’s livelihood, as well as the irreplaceability in industrial structure, we can’t let Shandong cotton production survival and death by itself. This study is based on the actual decline in Shandong cotton production, using the theory of recession industry strategic choices, the theory of induced technological transformation and the theory of public finance,summed up the bottleneck factors which influence Shandong cotton recession, they are high labor costs compressed cotton earnings, national support policies are not in place, and the low cotton quality.Then put forward corresponding strategies, for instance,the labor-saving strategy of cotton production, the cotton policy support strategy and the cotton quality management strategies.In terms of labor-saving production strategy, this paper studies along the route of new agricultural technologies research, that is “Raise of labor-saving cotton production--Economic mechanism analysis--Technology research frontier introduction--Research of farmers’ adoption willingness--Path selection of technology promotion and diffusion--Coping strategy”.From two aspects of theoretical basis and practical adoption attitude, the article proves the theoretical rationality and popularization difficulties in Shandong cotton labor-saving production, then put forward the technique popularized strategies in reality.Theoretically, combined with the characteristics of cotton production at first, this paper designs technical and economic system of labor-saving production, based on the technical systems of nursery, breeding, cultivation and mechanization, the article adds industrial organization system matching labor-saving production to improve the economic part of the system. Secondly the study demonstrates the feasibility and necessity of labor-saving production by economics principles. Combining element substitution theory and technical induced innovation theory, the research proves that elements price ratio of labor force and machinery has exceeded the marginal rate of technical substitution. In reality, substitution rate of labor and machinery make cotton production belongs to labor-intensive elements, while the substitution rate in cost require cotton production to be labor-saving, so we should find alternative elements of the labor force as far as possible.Actually, in the respect of labor-saving technology adoption, based on questionnaire survey recorded in Binzhou, Dezhou, etc.,it has been clear that labor-saving technology system still belongs to the new technology and new concept, in Shandong cotton production practice, the majority of production mode is still traditional, although there are individual production processes been penetrated by labor-saving technology, but farmers’ awareness of this technology system is still not in place, the adoption situation is not ideal either. Using the binary Logistic model, this article draw a conclution that factors affecting cotton farmers’ adoption attitude to labor-saving system in varying degrees, such as farmers’ age, planting area, cotton yield and net income per mu, whether to join the cooperation organization, technical requirements and labor source. Speaking of the actual labor-saving technology supply and promotion, Shandong has successfully developed many new cotton varieties, new technologies and new products, which provide a strong technical support for Shandong cotton industry development, but through game analysis between farmers, the government and intermediary organizations, there are still many deficiencies in the labor-saving technology diffusion. So in order to achieve labor-saving production strategy, the government, scientific research units, agricultural machinery suppliers, intermediary organizations and farmers themselves should joint efforts together in many aspects.In terms of Policy support strategy, it is difficult to stop cotton area shrinking by the current cotton planting subsidy and support policy in Shandong, Therefore, the implementation of cotton policies support strategy in Shandong is necessary. In this article, on the one hand, proves that the shandong cotton cultivation distribute in the backward regions and the poor people, subsidies of shandong cotton cultivation is a kind of hematopoietic poverty alleviation for the economically backward regions and low-income families, it has characteristic of "poverty against”; On the other hand, cotton production has a positive effect on improving soil ecology, conservation of resources in the Yellow River Delta, that is to say the cotton cultivation in the region maintains public goods of "ecological environment", so needs to take measures to the internalization of externalities.In terms of Quality management strategy, currently, Shandong cotton production exists the problems of low quality and instable grade,quality troubles of high heterosexual fiber content and poor consistency highlighted. In this paper, the impact of natural conditions and various steps of production and sell are obviously great to cotton quality, but the industrial organization structure influence on the cotton quality is more apparent. Combined with modern industrial organization SCP paradigm, this article demonstrates the various influences on Shandong cotton quality, those are the operation scale, vertical integration and barriers to trade in and out, then put forward effective way to enhance cotton quality from the perspective of industry chain integration and supporting measures optimization, provides theoretical and practical basis to optimize industrial organization and solve the cotton quality problems.