Research On Production Behavior Of Rice Farmers

Food security is closely related with social harmony, political stability and sustainable economic development of our country. Some countries consumed a lot of grains to produce biofuel, resulting in increasing demand for grain across the globe and relative short supply of grain. As the most populous country, China's food security issue is of great importance in the international food security system, which made the food security issue a key objective in China's agricultural policy system. Rice is of the largest growing area in China, an important guarantee of food self-sufficiency. The backward agricultural infrastructure, tight water supply, and weak capability to resist natural disasters, make rice production face unstable yields. These external factors mainly influence rice yield by affecting farmers'production behaviors, which determine rice yield to a large extent.Taking rice farmers as the study subject, this paper analyzes farmers'production behaviors on the basis of Cobb-Douglas production function. First, the paper applies Cobb-Douglas production function to conduct econometric analysis of the input and output of rice production by classifying production factors into technology, labor and capital. From the technological angle, this paper analyzes the variety adoption behavior of rice farmers by analyzing the process and influential factors both qualitatively and econometrically; from the labor perspective, this paper studies the quantity of own labor in key production processes by analyzing the influential factors econometrically; from the capital angle, this paper studies whether farmers conduct fixed capital investments and the scale by analyzing the possibilities and influential factors econometrically. From the above three perspectives, this paper studies the characteristics and influential factors of rice farmers'production behavior by using surveyed data on the household level.This study shows that: under the equivalent technological conditions, the increase of farmers'own labors has negative influence on rice yield; rice farmers'variety adoption process incorporates five procedures: identification of issues, demand and desire, information searching and technology appraisal, choice and adoption, and adoption feeling and next round of decision-making, which showed that the adoption of quality rice variety is in favorable condition during the decision-making process; variety adoption behavior of rice farmers is mainly influenced by external factors including rural cultural and value concepts, farmers'social status, rural grass-root organizations, agricultural promotion and service system, and internal factors including farmers'educational level, farmers'attitude towards new technologies; educational year, rice planting area, yield, off-farm job, relevant technical training have positive correlation with farmers'adoption of quality rice varieties, while farmers'house value has negative correlation; For labor input, land fragmentation, average distance from land to farmers'house, yearly income pattern have positive correlation with farmers'labor input per mu, while average family educational level, per capita rice area, whether family has large production equipment have negative correlation; family scale, average family educational level, cultivation area, family operational income, minimum purchase price expectation have positive correlation with the occurrence of fixed productive investment, while off-farm job ratio, credit level have negative correlation; family scale, while off-farm job ratio, cultivation area, family operational income, credit level, minimum purchase price expectation have positive correlation with the scale of fixed productive investment, while average family educational level, farmers'house value, disaster have negative correlation.Based on the above conclusions, this paper puts forwards the following policy suggestions: first, strengthen rural compulsory education, extensively conduct occupational training for farmers, make endeavors to raise the educational level of rice farmers; second, speed up the transformation of agricultural operational mode, by respecting farmers'willingness, encourage rice farmers to conduct land circulation to realize the optimized allocation of land resources and moderate-scale operation; third, promote research on rice planting technology and variety improvement, guide farmers to plant quality rice varieties; fourth, reinforce support and protection of rice production, raise minimum rice purchase price; fifth, promote the surplus labor transfer of rice farmers, broaden the releasing channel of employment information, create employment conditions for migrant labors to increase famers'off-farm income; sixth, improve rural financial service system, guarantee the capital supply for productive investment of rice farmers.