| Grain is an important strategic materials concerned with national interests and people's livelihood. China has boasted a big corn crop for several consecutive years, and achieved basic equilibrium of supply and demand. However, with the rapid growth of population and decrease of arable lands, it is very likely to cause a greater gap between grain supply and demand. Raising grain production becomes a crucial problem faced by China. In the long run, it is quite limited to increase arable lands. The only way to solve the problem lies in boosting the per unit area yield of grain. There are three sorts of factors which influence per unit area yield of grain: the first is input of resources, the second is technical progress and the third is technical efficiency. On current stage, it is restricted to increase input of resources. Furthermore, it is difficult to make a breakthrough in technical progress in short period. Therefore, technical efficiency as well as its influencing factors are the key point to the per unit area yield of grain, especially for corn and wheat which account for a large proportion in grain production.By applying Stochastic Frontier Production Function Model (Battese and Coelli, 1995), this paper analyzed technical efficiency as well as its influencing factors of corn and wheat production, the two major crops in China, during the thirty years of reform and opening-up. This paper also explored the variation trend of technical efficiency of main grain crops in China. Meanwhile the paper compared the technical efficiency differences between different areas and searched the law of its development. On the other hand, based on the field survey in Zhoukou city, Henan province, the paper analyzed the technical efficiency of wheat production in Zhoukou city and its influencing factors in 2008 and 2009. Through the means of quantitative analysis, the paper studied the factors influencing technical efficiency of main grain corps in China and the way to improve it.By analyzing production elasticity of technical efficiency of corn and wheat, it was found that: firstly, in the 30 years since the reform and opening up, the technical efficiency of corn and wheat were respective 86% and 76%, additionally, the potentials of improvement of technical efficiency were respective 14% and 24%; secondly, the technical efficiency of corn showed fluctuant downward trend while the technical efficiency wheat presented fluctuant upward tendency; thirdly, there were obvious differences on technical efficiency of corn and wheat in each area. The technical efficiency of major grain-producing areas was higher than other areas'. What's more, for the production of corn, the area of highest technical efficiency and the one of lowest technical efficiency were respective the northeast and the west and for the production of wheat, they were respective the east regions and the northeast regions; fourthly, the elasticities of input factors of corn and wheat were less than 1, which displayed that our production of corn and wheat was in the situation of decreasing returns to scale overall. Furthermore, the output elasticity of input of corn basically showed upward trend year by year, however, the output elasticity of input of wheat showed downward trend; fifthly, the increase of yield of per unit area of corn was due to technical progress. The increase of yield of per unit area of wheat was caused by technical progress and the promotion of technical efficiency.By analyzing the influencing factors of technical efficiency of corn and wheat, it concluded that for the production of corn, technical efficiency positively correlated to sown area of the crops per capital and proportion of effective irrigation, whereas, technical efficiency negatively correlated to hazard rate,GDP per capital and time-trend variables; for the production of wheat, technical efficiency positively correlated to proportion of effective irrigation,GDP per capital and time-trend variables while it negatively correlated hazard rate and sown area of the crops per capital.Based on sorting out the historical sequence of technical efficiency of corn and wheat and according to survey data of Zhou Kou in He Nan province, this paper analyzed the technical efficiency of wheat in Zhou Kou in the past two years, and then found that: firstly, Zhou Kou had a relatively high technical efficiency of wheat production and the average of technical efficiency was 83%, at the same, there are pronounced differences of technical efficiency in different county towns; secondly, the sum of output elasticity of wheat input in Zhou Kou was more than 1, which showed production of wheat in Zhou Kou was in the situation of increasing returns to scale overall; thirdly, among the influencing factors of technical efficiency of wheat production, farming proportion,whether wheat is main cultivated variety and hazard rate are significant influences while gender of householder,education year,sale proportion of wheat and family annual income had little influence to technical efficiency of wheat production.
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