Research On The Effects Of Farmland Consolidation On Agricultural Production And Welfare Of Rural Households

Farmland consolidation is conducive to the implementation of national food security and construction of harmonious society. The performance evaluation of farmland consolidation is a significant issue. The rural households as the land users, whose production management behavior directly affects the land use efficiency. Improving the efficiency of agricultural production, food security and increasing rural households' welfare is the important goal of farmland consolidation. Therefore, the analysis of farmland consolidation project performance from the perspective of rural households can reflect the effect of farmland consolidation more clearly, and finding the factors that influence the effect of farmland consolidation project has both theoretical and practical significance. Based on this, from microeconomic perspective of rural households, through researching on the effects of farmland consolidation about agricultural production behavior and welfare, this article summarizes the decision-making mechanism about the farmland consolidation implementation on agricultural production behavior, then evaluates its implementation effect, and explore improvement contribution of farmland consolidation on rural households'welfare, to provide academic and realistic basis for perfecting rural land consolidation policy.This article is divided into seven chapters, and the structure and the main conclusions are as follows:The first chapter introduces the research background and significance, and summarizes the existing literature and makes a literature review. On the basis of this, the research goal, content, ideas, structure, and methods, as well as research area are proposed. Finally, the innovation of this paper are summarized.The second chapter is the part of theoretical basis. Firstly, this article makes an analysis of farmland consolidation mechanism on the agricultural production process. Then based on the rural households'classic theory, it analyzes influences of farmland consolidation on agricultural inputs and outputs, using the theory of economics analysis method. The theoretical analysis in the influence of farmland consolidation on rural households'agriculture input includes crowding-out effect and crowding-in effect of farmland consolidation policy on rural households'land input, the effect of farmland consolidation on the agricultural production input factors, moderate scale of agricultural production and agricultural management behavior in different market.The analysis in the influence of farmland consolidation on rural households output includes the influence of farmland consolidation on the agricultural production efficiency and rural households' welfare effects. The injection of public investment will slow down the rate of diminishing marginal returns of private investment, and will encourage private investment. Therefore, there will be a Crowd-in Effect of farmland consolidation on agricultural input of rural households. Farmland consolidation will be substitutes with agricultural inputs of agricultural inpur of rural households, which is a crowding-out effect for agricultural inputs of rural households. The effects of farmland consolidation on farmers'fixed capital input decision-making depend on the expected utility of rural households. The effects of farmland consolidation on the Labor-time configuration of the different types of households are different. Implementation of farmland consolidation will affect the agricultural production structure adjustment of farmhouseholds. Implementation of agricultural land consolidation will affect the agricultural operation suitable scale of rural households, including optimal capital input, labor input and land input. The impacts of farmland consolidation on agricultural production behavior of rural households in different market are not the same. Farmland consolidation palys an important role in promoting the efficiency of agricultural production for rural households. The edgeworth box analysis tells that farmland consolidation contributes to welfare of rural households.Through the analysis, this article puts forward the research hypothesis:farmland consolidation has different effects on different agriculture inputs, and it has contribution to the agricultural production efficiency and welfare.The third chapter gives the distribution of the agricultural production behavior and welfare before and after farmland consolidation. Through the theoretical analysis, the cognition of the rural households on the rural land consolidation firstly acts on rural land consolidation. On the basis of this, the farmland consolidation has an affect on the agricultural production behavior and welfare. Through analysis of the cognitive situation of rural households on the farmland consolidation, we can know that the understanding level of rural households on farmland consolidation policy is generally low. But the degree of recognition of rural households on farmland consolidation is really high. After farmland consolidation, capital and labor input of rural households increase and land investment will be remain basically unchanged. The income and leisure of rural households are increased, but respect for the psychological welfare reduce of farm household are reduced.The fourth chapter analyzes the influences of farmland consolidation on the agricultural production behavior, agricultural input and agricultural production structure. Farmland input includes land, labor, capital and fixed capital input. The effects of farmland consolidation on agricultural production input level is shown in current situation and willingness. The result shows that the farmland consolidation project in research region has wedge action for agricultural input of farm households, mainly expressed in liquid capital and land input of farm households, while the impacts of farmland consolidation on different inputs are not same, the influence of farmland consolidation on liquid capital and labor input greater than fixed capital and land input; and the influence of farmland consolidation on input willingness of fixed capital and land more obvious than status, subject to the constraint factors. Farmland consolidation affects agricultural production expectation of rural households.The fifth chapter analyzes the effect of farmland consolidation on agricultural production efficiency. The goal of farmland consolidation is to improve condition of agriculture produce, raise agricultural productivity, and ensure national food safety. In this chapter, through the analysis of the government input in rural public goods for the agricultural production efficiency and the effects of land consolidation on agricultural production efficiency, the contents of the two parts above mutually confirm to discuss the contribution degree of farmland consolidation on agricultural production efficiency improvement. The pure technical efficiency of rural households in survey area is0.391, and the scale efficiency is0.810; average overall efficiency of agricultural production efficiency of rural households is low, only0.321; agricultural production efficient of rural households is low, the efficiency valueis mainly concentrated in the less than0.4; Agricultural production efficiency is different between rural households. Degree of recognition of rural households on farmland consolidation and degree of satisfaction of rural households on farmland consolidation construction have positive impact on land use efficiency, the regression coefficients are0.042558and0.017027, which illustrate that land consolidation variable will promote the efficiency of agricultural production. According to the cointegration test, the government input in rural public goods and agricultural production efficiency exists long-run equilibrium relationship; according to the Granger causality test, government input in rural public goods is the granger cause of agricultural production efficiency; According to the impulse response function and variance decomposition, government input in rural public goods is beneficial to improve the efficiency of agricultural production, further confirms the household survey results.The sixth chapter analyzes the effect of rural land consolidation on rural households' welfare level. The goal of farmland consolidation is to increase rural households'income, and enhance rural households'welfare. Based on the theory of welfare economics and under the Sen's welfare theoretical framework, this chapter selects welfare index of rural households to measure welfare changes before and after farmland consolidation. The results show that:before the rural land consolidation, total welfare value is0.37, after the rural land consolidation, total welfare value is0.42, the welfare changes about0.05, and it is in the right direction. Household welfare increases after the rural land consolidation, and affirms the farmland consolidation performance. But the total welfare value only changes for0.05, which shows that the improvement contribution of farmland consolidation on rural households' welfare is not outstanding, so more can be done to improve it. After rural land consolidation, welfare value of domestic economy, resource endowment, leisure and rural households'psychological will increase, in the rural households'psychological benefits, rural households respected psychological welfare changes for-0.17. Among four aspects of domestic economy, resource endowment, leisure and rural households' psychological of the improvement, the biggest welfare value range is leisure. The implement of rural land consolidation is through the reduction of rural households'labor intensity and time leading to the increasing of rural households'leisure. Rural land consolidation not only brings the economic benefits for rural households, but also increases the rural households'non-economic benefits. This article thoroughly analyzes the contribution of farmland consolidation variables on household welfare. Though the analysis, we can find that level of education, the degree of development of the land market and the labor market, regional differences, and quality of farmland consolidation and the cognitive by rural households on farmland consolidation are the main factors affecting rural households'welfare, and farmland consolidation has positive influence on rural households'welfare. The result of path analysis shows that rural land consolidation variable has important direct effects on the rural households'welfare changes and plays an indirect contribution through affecting the other aspects.The seventh chapter is the research conclusion and policy meaning. Firstly, this article summarizes the conclusions of theoretical and empirical analyses. Secondly, based on the conclusions, it makes following policy recommendations, including improving the quality of farmland consolidation and the rural households participation mechanism, strengthening management and protection of farmland consolidation and increasing farmland consolidation propaganda, which provide policy basis for effectively implement of land consolidation.