| China's grain output has been on the rapid increase as a result of the supportive and favorable policies for agriculture since the beginning of the reform and opening up in 1978. However,some new problems have occurred that the sustainable development in grain production faces the constrictions of environment and resources in China. In order to ensure China's grain security under the background of its rapid industrialization and urbanization, the growth method of grain production must be changed from extensive form (input-driving type) to intensive form (efficiency-driving type). On the existing studies, this paper will analyze the carbon sources and sinks of grain crops, calculate the net discharge of carbon from grain production, bring the net carbon discharge into production function, and use the transcendental logarithmic stochastic frontier analysis to study China's green technical efficiency and green TFP in 1998-2013. The major results are as follows:(1) China's grain growth is mainly as a result of more inputs and is typically of extensive growth form. In 1998-2013 in China, the average year-on year growth rates were 0.5024% for the grain output,0.5137% for inputs, and -0.0113% for TFP, which shows a great potential for the improvement in TFP. The development of urbanization and industrialization will reduce the amounts of such inputs as labor and land and consequently make it more and more difficult to maintain grain expansion by way of more inputs, and great importance will be attached to the increase in the TFP of grain production.(2) Among the efficiency factors, the aging labor raised the grain production technical efficiency, while the rise in the rate of natural disasters lowered grain technical efficiency. The causes for the positive influence of aging rural labor in grain production technical efficiency are possibly that, on the one hand, the aging laborers have more professional experience in grain production; on the other hand, the aging laborers, in order to save labor, tend to plant grain crops which use more mechanical tools than economic crops. The urbanization and industrialization will lead more rural labor, especially young labor, to migrate into cities, which will result in the aging and female rural labor structure. Therefore, effective measures must be taken to guide more quality labor to return rural areas so as to guarantee grain safety.(3) The efficiency loss of environmental pollution is of universal existence in the grain production in China. Taking the factor of environmental pollution into consideration, the green technical efficiency was lower by 0.25%?0.14%%?0.22% and 0.42% than the traditional technical efficiency for China, Eastern, Middle and Western China respectively in 1998-2013. This shows that China's grain output expansion is reached at the price of more chemical products and more environmental sacrifices, which should be changed as soon as possible in order to realize the sustainable development and long-period safety of grains.(4) There is a larger difference in the average annual growth rates between the green TFP and the traditional one. Taking the environmental factor into consideration, China's average annual green TFP is down by 0.0113% while its average annual traditional TFP is up by 0.1199% in 1998-2013. By year, most years see a higher growth rate of traditional TFP than green TFP, and it is difficult to see the win-win situation of the co-existence of productivity growth and environmental improvements. On average, the annual growth rates of green TFP and the scale return and technical efficiency of its components are all lower than those of the traditional TFP in 1998-2013. That is to say, the grain TFP is on the rise when there is no consideration of environments, but it is on the decrease taking the environmental factor into consideration, which shows that China's grain production does greater damage to the environment, resulting in a higher indirect cost of grain production. |
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