The Evolution Of Spatial Layout Of China’s Crop Farming(1978-2009)

Since the Reform and Opening-up, the spatial layout of China’s crop farming has changed profoundly. Whether this change tends to specialization or decentralization affects the exertion of comparative revenue of China’s crop farming directly. Meanwhile, it will also influence the farming production efficiency indirectly. Additionally, if the revolution of spatial layout of crop farming accords with the rule of comparative revenue concerns the regulating effect of market mechanism on agriculture production, as well as the growth of farmer income and even the whole agriculture sector.In the dissertation, the revolution of spatial layout of China’s crop farming has been studied by selecting12main crops and a panel data at provincial level from1978to2009. The major conclusions consist of three aspects.Firstly, the total sown area of China’s grain crops has decreased about10percent since the Reform and Opening-up, while the distribution pattern of different grains on the national level shows huge diversity. In summary, the specialization and centralization of China’s grains are apparent, and the sown area of economic crops shows ascending trends, with obvious variation on the distribution pattern of grain crops at different regions.Secondly, the national average index of regional specialization of crop farming has experienced an abovious U-shape’s trend, with fluctuation in individual years, which may be related with the policy and economy environment at that time. Large difference exists among the regional specialization index of crop farming and its variation trend in different regions. The specialization index tends to be high and ascending in the area with simplex agricultural products structure and developed economy. However, the indices in traditional agricultural provinces are generally low and descending.Thirdly, the changes of crops’ structure and spatial layout conform to the rule of comparative revenue in most regions of China, indicating that the market mechanism is unhindered in China’s agricultural production, and famers can make production decisions basically freely according to market demand and cost-benefit situation. Still, there are individual provinces violating this principle on some crops, for example, several major grain producing provinces have to grow plenty of grain crops with low comparative revenue under the administrative intervation. In addition, the variation of sown area ratio of most crops at the national and regional level basically lags behind the variation of revenue ratio for one or two years, which means farmers tends to make production decisions according to the revenue situation one or two years ago. This conclusion is an important reference on the adjustment of production structure and spatial layout of China’s agriculture.Consequently, some measures are proposed in this dissertation, for example, deepening the reform of rural market mechanism, so that the market can play a greater role; improving subsidy level and optimizing its structure; raising minimum purchase prices of agriculture products; increasing the support degree on main areas of producing crops, especially main counties of producing grain; promoting the construction of producing bases of agricultural products.