| The 21st century is the century of knowledge-based economy, all industries are dependent on the motivation of technological progress, and scientific research is the source of technological progress. China’s agricultural development is facing many restrictions such as population, economy, resources & environment and other factors; however, agriculture is the basic industry, which has tremendous economic externality. And of course, agricultural development is also dependent on agricultural research and technological progress, but there are many issues which China’s agricultural research needs to be resolved. The performance of agricultural research needs to be evaluated and upgraded, and furthermore, the innovations of management and system are also needed. In this context, this dissertation based on the previous studies, and with the theory of public economics and agricultural technology development, made a comparative analysis on the agricultural research investment model of world’s major developed and developing countries. In this dissertation, the status quo of China’s agricultural research and development trend was analyzed. Empirical evaluations on the comparative performance of agricultural research investment among China and the major developing and developed countries were made by adopting DEA and SFA methods, moreover, the main contradictions and problems of China’s agricultural research system were analyzed and summarized. The influence of the major agriculture research investment factors on the technological progress of agriculture was empirically studied. In the end, based on theory and empirical studies, the goal and principles, model mechanism and system design for the improvement of the performance of agricultural research investment of China were put forward.1. The main conclusions of the dissertation.(1) The status quo analysis of the performance of China’s agricultural research investment has shown that:China’s agricultural research institutions are large and redundant, and the research funding per capita is limited. There is a huge gap between the requirements of Chinese researchers’ degree level qualifications and the international generally accepted. Only 5.65% of the Chinese agricultural researchers have Ph. degrees. China lacks agricultural research funding sources, mainly depends on investment from government, and has not formed a diversified investment bodies yet. Using Solow residual method to calculate the total factor productivity in China’s agricultural economy in the agricultural share of the contribution, the results show that the average from 1999 to 2009 was 31.73%, and with DEA method 1978-2009 annual average reached 47.07%, both of which were significantly lower than that of the major developed countries.(2) The comparative performance analysis of investment in agricultural research between China and the world’s major countries has shown that:The main result of DEA and SFA are consistent, which show that China’s agricultural production technical efficiency is high, and China has taken full advantage of the existing agricultural factors of production and technology. But the dynamics DEA result shows that the average growth rate of agricultural technical progress and total factor productivity of China is basically lower than that of the other major countries. And index of change in agricultural technical efficiency is declining. The technical progress rate and scale efficiency of agriculture are at relatively lower level among these countries. The total factor productivity of agriculture in China ranks at relatively lower level in the international comparison.(3) The DEA comparative performance analysis of Chinese investment in agricultural research between different regions has shown that:China’s agricultural productivity is the highest in Northeast, the second highest in Central South, Southwest and East, and relatively low in North and Northwest regions. Dynamic DEA and TFP analysis show that 1978-2009 China’s agricultural total factor productivity increased by 2.4% annually. North China has the highest average TFP progress, Northeast, East, Central South and Northwest China is the second highest, and the Southwest China is the lowest area. Agricultural TFP differences are mainly caused by the differences in overall levels of efficiency. From the management efficiency point of view, regional level of agricultural management and system innovation are poor. With 1978 as the base period of fixed DEA efficiency index,1978-2009 China’s agricultural TFP rose by 2.4% annually, while the overall efficiency decline 1.4% annually and technological progress increase 3.9% annually. Dynamically, China’s agricultural production efficiency in the management is declining; and agricultural TFP advance is driven mainly by technological progress. If agricultural research can be divided into management research and technical research, the management research is badly needed. China needs to improve the level of agricultural innovation system for the improvement of agricultural production management, systems and organizational forms.(4) The SFA comparative performance analysis of Chinese investment in agricultural research among different regions has shown that:From a technical efficiency perspective, evaluation results of DEA and SFA are consistent. China’s agricultural research system efficiency and management efficiency are declining; management performance and system innovation are urgently needed. Relatively higher technological progress counteracts declining management efficiency and decreasing returns to scale in most regions, by which different regions in China can obtain increase of TFP of agriculture as a whole. DEA and SFA results show that China’s agricultural TFP increase comes mainly from technological progress. The result of DEA and SFA efficiency on agricultural production, scale efficiency and technical progress and total factor productivity are almost the same.(5)The problem analysis on the China’s agricultural research investment performance shows that:Chinese investment in agricultural research came primarily from government. High proportion of investment, lack of money market fund and private capital market intervention can result in the loss of efficiency. This situation is caused by the lack of scale agricultural operations and the slow development of agricultural industrialization. The low qualities of agricultural scientists adversely affect the competitive strength of agricultural scientific research. Incentive mechanism of Chinese agricultural research staff needs to be studied and strengthened. There are also problems of uneven distribution of researchers between the central government and the local region, and among local regions. China’s agricultural research investment intensity is not only evidently lower than that of developed countries, but also lower than the average level of investment in developing countries. China badly needs to increase the investment in agricultural research. China’s agricultural research institutions lack overall planning, the regional layout of agricultural research system is not appropriate, and the division of work between different types of research institutions is not clear. There are also low efficiency issues such as funding operation and management of capital investment in agricultural research.(6) The results of the empirical analysis of the factors affecting the China’s agricultural research investment performance’ show that:There is significant positive correlation between agricultural R&D personnel input and agricultural technological advances, and there is also significant positive correlation between agricultural R&D expenditures and agricultural technological advances. But there is no significant relationship between average years of education of agricultural labor force and the technological progress in agricultural. Both proportion of effective irrigated area of crops and the proportion of the disaster-affected area of crops are not significantly correlated with agricultural technological advances. The major factors influencing China’s technological advances in agriculture are agricultural research input and its extension, but the particular local conditions don’t sufficiently affect agricultural production. And as to the China’s investment in agriculture, research staff and capital investment, in terms of quantity and quality, both are needed to be increased.2. The main innovations.The main innovations of the dissertation are as follow:(1) Using data envelopment analysis (DEA) and stochastic frontier analysis (SFA) approach, the dissertation made an analysis and comparison of agricultural technical efficiency and technical progress efficiency between China and the world’s major countries, and drew some instructional conclusions. The dissertation not only evaluated relative efficiency in agricultural research and analyzed technological advances among different regions, but also empirically analyzed agricultural research input and agricultural technological progress affected by natural and economical factors, by which empirical conclusions that possess referential value to increase agriculture research efficacy can also be drawn.(2) The dissertation proposes reforms should focus on investment in agricultural research and agricultural production and management mode. Meaningful relevant policy recommendations are put forward.3. The main suggestions.(1) Increase investment in agricultural research. Agricultural research investment plays an important role in promoting economic growth, fueling relative industries and national economy increase, and effectively reducing poverty. Hence, the status of agricultural research investment should be promoted and dynamics of investment should be intensified. During recent years, related government departments have been conscious of the importance of agricultural research investment and the speed of agricultural research investment are being accelerated, but state financial appropriation and spending increase faster than that of agricultural research investment, which make the contribution of agricultural research in national economy asymmetrical. Future agriculture development needs the powerful technological support and continuous investment increase in science and technology is the source of agricultural research progress. So the suggestion is that the government should speed up the increase of agricultural scientific research investment, improve the ratio of investment of agricultural scientific research in the finance and investment state funding, in order to ensure the investment of agricultural scientific research to play an important part in the national economy.(2) Broaden the financing channels for agricultural research. As agricultural research possesses relatively higher externality and public product trait, we must maintain the national investment as the main agricultural research institutions, and maintain its nature of public service. Public agricultural research, supply of public products, and service should be considered as the key missions for agricultural research institutes. The nation’s investment efforts in agricultural research should be increased, and a long-term stable investment support mechanisms should be formed. Commercial running and profit seeking in agricultural research institutes should be avoided. The government must follow the principle of market efficiency, take government investment as the mainstay, form multiple investment benefit pattern, develop a multi-channel pattern of investment, and efficiently promote resources utilization.(3) Optimize the investment structure of agricultural research. Governments at all levels and their management department should speed up the structure adjustment of agriculture research investment, especially need to increase those agricultural scientific research investment in the fields of high added value, high comparative benefits agricultural production.(4) Keep agricultural research and extension harmonious. Extension and application of achievements are the continuations of agricultural researches and the embodiments of agricultural research investment efficacy. With the improvement of agricultural industrialization level and the reform of scientific research institute, social benefit and economic benefit gradually overlap. This chain of division of earning is in accordance with market operating mode, which can make agricultural research achievement truly serve agricultural production and increases agricultural productivity development level. Therefore, extension is the stretch of research in agriculture, and end-result for agricultural research is extension and application. By integrating agricultural research, specialized farmer, and development enterprise, by combining agricultural research with administrative effectiveness, agricultural research achievement can be transformed in the course of agricultural industry. Meanwhile, utility value of sci-tech product will be proved and innovation message will be captured.(5) Strengthen agricultural research investment monitoring. In the real context, innovation and investment in agricultural research should be the concept of performance management. We should be fully aware that the performance of funds is capital investment in agricultural research, and that the performance of funds is to focus on agricultural research results, and runs through them in the agricultural research policy formulation and implementation of the whole process. The investment in agricultural research investment and monitoring the performance of investment in agricultural research should be put at the same position. A sound analysis of budget implementation systems and the progress of investments in agricultural research evaluation system should be established. The reimbursement system, the publicity system, management system and other peer-reviewed methods should be continued to improve. Agricultural research investment performance appraisal system should be strengthened, and investment in agricultural research linked to the development and performance appraisal should be gradually realized. We should take advantage of agricultural research institutes at lower levels because of their facing production and their knowing the real situation. Agricultural research institutes at lower levels should be conferred additional regulatory responsibilities to improve the implementation of agricultural research investment performance, and better financial support for agricultural research.
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