Empirical Research On The Production Behaviors And Efficiency Of Households Of Different Scales

Agricultural households are the main production body of grain. Under the current background of increasingly higher domestic production cost, severer resource and environment constraints and fiercer international competition, performing research on agricultural households‘productionbehaviors like factor input and technology selection and conducting analysis on their technical efficiency are very significant for utilizing targeted countermeasures in developing food industry in China to reinforce thecorrespondingcompetiveness, improve efficiency and fulfill sustainable growth.By taking three major grain producing counties from two major grain producing areas(Dawa and Xinmin counties from Liaoning province and Xinxiang county from Henan province) as sample areas, this research has conducted a questionnaire survey among 756 agricultural households. After analyzing the questionnaires, it is found that the backbone of farmers engaging in grain producing in the two major grain producing areas are over the age of 40 and most of the farmers have received an education of junior or senior high school. In Liaoning province, rice and maize producing households tend to have large-scale farm with high degree of land fragmentation, while in Henan, wheat producing households have small-scale farm with low degree of land fragmentation. In addition, most of the grain-producing households have a rather low income.Labor force, inputs and mechanical elements are the fundamental factors of grain producing and input behavior is the production behavior having the most direct impact on grain producing. Households of different scales differ greatly in those input behaviors including labor force, inputs and mechanical elements because of being influenced by the major factors like gender, household income, concurrent condition, land fragmentation and grain price of the last year. Among those major factors, gender has obvious influence on the input of small and large scale maize producing households; education level of farmers has obvious influence on small and large scale rice producing households and large-scale maize producing households; household income has obvious influence on large-scale rice producing households and maize producing households and small-scale wheat producing households; concurrent condition has obvious influence on medium and small scale rice producing households and large-scale maize producing households; sown area has obvious influence on large and medium scale rice producing households, small and large scale maize producing households and large-scale wheat producing households; land fragmentation has obvious influence on large and medium scale rice producing households, medium-scale maize producing households and large-scale wheat producing households and grain price of the last year has obvious influence on all the households.Science and technology are significant driving force in improving the efficiency and benefit of food industry and the technology selection behavior of households will directly affect the scientific and technological level of food industry. Influenced by many factors like gender, education level, concurrent condition, household income, land fragmentation degree, technical service accessibility and agricultural training, households of different scales differ greatly in technology selection behaviors. Among all the households, medium-scale households have the strongest demand for new technology; small-scale households obtaining technologies are mainly through non-profit promotion department of agricultural technology and large-scale households have more diversified ways to obtaining technology. Households of different scales also differ greatly in technology selection behavior when facing the same influence factor. Gender and age have small influence on the technology selection behavior of large-scale households engaging in rice and maize cultivation; land fragmentation has obvious effect on two kinds of the agricultural technology selection types of households and little effect on the technology selection behavior of small-scale households.Based on the research of production behavior and technical efficiency of agricultural households, this study has stated out targeted countermeasures. Promote proper scale of grain producing through completing land transfer system, innovating scale operation mode and cultivating and supporting new-style operation body and other ways. Advance the precision promotion of agricultural technology by ways of accelerating the innovation and application of key proper technology, perfecting the agricultural technology promotion system at grassroots level, strengthening the construction of grassroots promotion team of agricultural technology and the corresponding capacity, innovating the system and mode for promoting agricultural technology and foster new-style professional farmers. Properly control the application amount of agricultural inputs through ways like implementing actions targeting zero growth in chemical fertilizer use and accelerating the application of production patterns like the combination mode of planting and raising, commercial production and implementation of organic fertilizer and scientific fertilization. Improve the social service level for grain producing by ways like perfecting non-profit social service in agriculture and developing profit social service. Fulfill integrated development of food industry through internal integration of the primary industry, integrated development of the primaryindustry and the secondary industry and of the primary industry and the tertiary industry.