Research On Evolution And Development Of Major Grain-producing Areas In China

Food safety is an important issue related to national interest and people’s livelihood. Especially for China, with1.3billion people, food security issue is particularly important. Since the founding of new China, China has created a miracle that9%of the world’s arable land and6%of the fresh water feed20%of the world’s population. Although China has made great achievement in food production, the basis of China’s food security is not stable. With the decreasing of the marginal benefit of agricultural policies and the change of China’s macro-economic situation, China’s grain production is also not good. Major grain producing areas are the core areas of China’s commodity grain, which play a decisive role in ensuring the effective supply of China’s main agricultural products. Once the major grain-producing areas have problems, they will directly endanger the country’s food security and social stability. Since the1980s, China’s major grain producing areas have showed a shrinking trend. This change was the result of multiple factors which contain nature, economics, science, technology and so on. Not only in the past, but now, even in the future, evolution and development of China’s major grain-producing areas would be a great impact on China’s food security.This paper, cutting from the perspective of changes in spatial patterns of major grain producing areas and food security, revealed the characteristics and reasons of historical evolution of China’s major grain-producing areas, discussed the main problems of major grain-producing areas, analyzed the choice of behavior of farming in the process of industrialization, which based on comparative advantage, explored impetus mechanism of farmers investing grain production in the situation of grain income declining, provided a theoretical basis and empirical support for establishing long-term mechanism of sustainable development of major grain-producing areas and formulating national food security strategy.This paper is composed of eight chapters, Main contents and conclusions are as follows:The first chapter is an introduction. It introduced the significance, objectives, contents, methodology and technical route, reviewed relevant research, defined the basic concepts and research scope, fonnulated the theoretical basis.The second chapter is the change of China’s major grain-producing areas. Based on the analysis of the historical process of evolution in the China’s major grain-producing areas, this paper summed up the characteristics of spatial pattern change, empirically studied the influence factors of spatial pattern change and explored main reasons. The results of the study showed that since the founding of new China, spatial pattern of China’s major grain-producing areas had undergone great changes. This change reflected in two aspects, production pattern and circulation patterns. From the change of China’s grain production pattern change, the grain production areas had transferred from south to north, from east and west to the central. Food production of southeast coastal areas had sharply narrowed. Northeast and Huang-Huai regions had formed the national grain growth center. The boundary of major grain-producing areas had evidently emerged narrow trend. From the change of China’s grain circulation pattern, with the grain transport from plan allocation to market regulation, China’s grain flow changed from "south to north" to "north to south" The changes of China’s major grain-producing areas showed marked characteristics:First, space of the major grain-producing areas is relatively concentrated. Second, regional differentiation of grain production and population distribution is intensified. Third, major grain-producing areas are concentrated to economy lagging regions. Fourth, the space distance between major grain-producing areas and grain-marketing areas is increased. The space pattern changes in China’s major grain-producing areas are accompanied by China’s economic reform. These kinds of changes contain complex and profound economic and social reasons. First, the grain comparative benefits low is the basic reason. Second, regional differences of market、 internationalization industrialization and urbanization is an important reason. Third, the contradiction between human and land is the objective reason. Fourth, social demand is the marketable reason. Fifth, agricultural technological progress provides driving force.The third chapter is the internal difference analysis of China’s major grain-producing areas. First of all, using the factor analysis method made a comprehensive evaluation of regional economic disparities of China’s13major grain-producing areas. Secondly, using the comparative analysis method discussed the internal differences of major grain-producing areas from two aspects, grain production capacity and commercialization degree. Research showed that economic development of the provinces (autonomous regions) of major grain-producing areas presented gradient feature. The economic development in Jiangsu, Shandong, Liaoning and Hebei were higher than average. The other provinces (autonomous regions) were lower than average. Grain commercialization of provinces with higher levels of economic development was not high. It was noteworthy that the per capita shares of grain were even lower than the national average in Sichuan and Hubei provinces. Grain commercialization degree in Heilongjiang, Jilin and Inner Mongolia were significantly higher than the national average level. Their fluctuation coefficients of grain yield were higher than the national average, which showed that the stability of grain production were very poor in major grain production provinces.The forth chapter covers the issues that the major grain-producing areas faced. The issues included interest loss of China’s major grain-producing areas, lagging of regional economic development, obstacle of the grain circulation system, small-scale land, industrialization "effect" of farmers producing behavior and so on.The fifth chapter is the positive analysis of the farmers growing grain in the industrialization process. Combining research purposes, referring to the exist results and according to field research situation, the paper firstly taking Zhejiang province for example analyzed farm households’growing grain behavior in the process of industrialization by VAR model. Secondly, taking Jilin province for example, the paper analyzed the influenced factors of farmers’willingness to grow grain in the process of industrialization by logistic model. Finally, according to the above research results, on the basis of fixed effects model, the paper examined the relation between the farmer’s income and the agricultural investment by the method of OLS, and predicted the farmer’s growing grain behavior. The results showed that, for the farmers who were in the middle and last process of industrializing, change of relative income was important factor that affected the behavior of growing grain. And the change had negative effects.Under full development of industrialization, with non-farm income becoming the main income of the farmers, the enthusiasm of farmers’ growing grain would be significantly reduced. For the farmers who were in the first and middle process of industrializing, the farmer’s age、the farmer’s educational level、grain price、the agricultural investment cost、the proportion of income of growing grain in total income and the grain subsidies policy and so on would affect the behavior of farmers’ growing grain. The farmer’s age、grain prices、the proportion of income of growing grain in total income and grain subsidies policy had positive influence. The farmer’s educational level and the agricultural investment cost had negative influence. Through the analysis, it showed that change of relative income had important influence. When the proportion of the primary industry income of farmers’ household in the major grain-producing areas dropped to1/5, the agricultural production investment would account for only about1/10of all spending. In this "moment", farmers would no longer concern about the return of land, even abandon arable land.The sixth chapter gives the support policies of China’s major grain-producing areas. The development of major grain-producing areas can not be off national policy support. So it is necessary to review, sort out and evaluate the support policies of major grain-producing areas, propose measures of adjusting and optimizing support policies of major grain-producing areas. Since reform and opening-up, especially since2004, China has built the basic framework of the support policy system for major grain-producing areas around the factors of production, producer and product markets from the resource security, substance equipment, technological support, production and management, income support, risk resilience, processing and conversion, and market regulation and so on. At present, there is a significant change and development for support policy system of major grain-producing areas on the connotation of policy or on the extension. Implementation of the policy has achieved good results. But compared with the construction of modern agriculture and the needs of construction of new socialist countryside, there are still many problems that standard of policy subsidies is lower, cost of implementation is higher, support system is not perfect, matching policy can not initiate the enthusiasm of local government and so on. In order to promote long-term stable development of grain production and build long-term mechanism of the national food security, we need to establish stable and long-term support policy system for major grain-producing areas, further increase policy support, expand the scope of policy support and change policy support mode.In the seventh chapter, development of China’s major grain-producing areas is expected. To achieve the healthy development of major grain-producing areas, it is must combined with the reality and future needs of development of major grain-producing areas, scientifically determine the strategic position of major grain-producing areas, formulate the development goals of major grain-producing areas, clear the conditions for sustainable development of major grain-producing areas. Therefore, it must strengthen the element basis of grain production of major grain-producing areas, including strengthening elements of the natural basis, increasing labor input, enhancing efficiency of elements and so on.The last chapter covers conclusions and policy implications. On the basis of the research results, this dissertation puts forward some measures for sustainable development of China’s major grain-producing areas. It puts forward recommendations for relevant government department.This paper analyzed the interrelation of economic interests and their behavior about the nation, local government and farmers from the macro, meso and micro levels, and discussed the changes of the major grain-producing areas from many aspects. In order to providing theoretical basis for the future development of major grain-producing areas, the evaluation system was established from the comprehensive economic strength, grain production capacity and grain commercialization degree. And the internal differences of the current13major grain-producing areas were analyzed. In the process of industrialization, with the improvement of the concurrent-business degree of farmers, the commodity meaning and income significance of grain production would have became more and more unimportant, the farmers of major grain-producing areas would have grown into the serious behavior of abandoning grain production. Taking it as a background, the paper discussed how to mobilize the enthusiasm of farmers and ensure the country’s food safety. From the academic value and theoretical significances, it was a theoretical exploration which was based on a new perspective to ensure the food safety. From the practical significances, there were important realistic significances to stabilize and improve grain production capacity, ensure food security, speed up the development of major grain-producing areas, increase farmers’ income and promote the development of modern agriculture.