Specialization And Scale Evolution:an Empirical Study Based On Special Animal Breeding In Shandong Province

The division of labor originated from the power of exchanging among people. On one hand, the division of labor is limited by the extent of the market, and on the other hand, it will promote the expansion of the market. Agricultural economy in China has achieved unprecedented success since 1978; however, the relationship between the expansion of market and the labor division in agricultural economy has not attracted enough attention, the conclusion of the finitude labor divisionin agriculture has long occupied the upper hand of theoretical research. Although there are natural barriers to the labor division in agriculture which is caused by the seasonal production, it is also possible to improve the efficiency of agriculture through the division of labor.Based on the characteristics of agriculture in China, family farms will be the main body of agricultural production for a long time in the future, the impact of labor division on the efficiency of agricultureplays an important role in the efficiency improvement of micro-farmers. According to the field survey of special animal breeding in Shandong Province, Weifang city, the relationship between the specialization and the production decision of farmers will be empirically analyzed.The purpose of this research is to verify the relationship between labor division and market scale in agriculture. The logical thinking of this study is as follows:the emerging of labor division, farmers'decision of specialization, the improvement of efficiency, and the expansion of the market. The main contents and the related findings of this study are as follows:Firstly, combined with the characteristics of agriculture, this study has combed the interaction mechanism between the labor division and the market in agriculture, based on the theory review of labor division and scale economy.Through the general analysis of the macro-data, we find that the expansion of the market has a positive correlation with the evolution of the labor division. From the perspective of the micro-farmers'size evolution, there are much differences among stages, that is, the trend of size evolution turns from differentiation to harmonization.Secondly, the impact of specialization on farmers' production decision is quantitativelyanalyzedmainly in the following three aspects:(1) the decision of farmers'specialization. The endowment of farmers' resources and the transaction costs for production factors commonly effect the farmer's decision. Compared with the technology intensive production process, the labor and capital intensive production processes have greater probility of outsourcing, even though the cost and uncertainty of outsourcing are reducing, the farmers still tend to internalize the technology. (2) The relationship between specialization and efficiency improvement. The research shows that the average technical efficiency of farmers is 0.729, and only 5.88% of the DUMs achieved the optimal efficiency.80.4% of the DUMs can not improve their efficiency by reducing the land scale. It means that, the land scale has become a major factor which restricts the improvement of efficiency. The further research shows that the deepening of labor division has a significantly positive effect on the overall technical efficiency and scale efficiency, on the contrary, the impact on the pure technical efficiency is not significant. The result confirms that, it is the optimization of the allocation efficiency instead of the technology premium which has a positive effect on the improvement of technical efficiency. (3) The research on the mechanismbetween specialization and scale evolution. We find that,70.6% of the farmers would like to expand the land scale (7.05 acres), and the size of actual land scale (1.94 acres) is increased by 5.11 acres. Further research shows that the specialization has a significant positive effect on the intention of optimal size. At the same time, the structure of labor endowment and risk perception will also affect the intention of size adjustment.Last but not least, the article analyzes the dynamic effect of farmers'decision of specialization on the evolution of scale in the process of market development. The study found that farmers obtain the premium through different styles of division in different stages of market, while the external market is absence, the internal division of labor can improve the productivity through professional effect; the decision making of labor division will change with the increase of breeding size, due to the existence of economies of scale; the premium obtained from outsourcing is positively influenced by the mature degree of market development, the more mature the market; compared with the labor intensive production, the outsourcing decision of technology process has more impact on the scale process.The research verifies the interaction between the labor division and market scale using the micro-data. There are two contributions to the concerned issues, on one hand, by introducingthe research of special animal breeding into the economic framework; our results are also applicable to other relevant departments. And on the other hand, by re-examining the path of agricultural scale operation on the perspective of labor division, we provide a new idea for agricultural scale operationto break though the institution barriers. Based on the conclusion above, this study suggests that, we could improve the enthusiasm of farmers to participate in labor division through the following supply of institution:firstly, the government should consummate the agricultural social service system through the cooperation between enterprises and the institutions; secondly, the government should reduce agricultural risks by increasing the supply of agricultural insurance and agricultural credit; thirdly, the government should encourage the farmers' long-term investment by the rational planning of land allocation.