Endowment Restriction,Factor Substitution And Grain Production Change In China

From the past until now,there are many phenomenon of confusing that cannot be explained with a simple common sense in the process of structural adjustment and change of grain production,which is worthy further study.Since the 1990s,China's grain has an amazing production growth in China's high-speed propulsion of urbanization.However,the acreage of grain is falling.It is worth noting that the regional tendency of the change of grain's acreage is not consistent with the national situation.Especially in some areas have similar social and economic conditions,their tendency of the change of grain's acreage are also dissimilar.It remind us that although China's acreage of grain is falling at national level,the problem is far from simple in fact.The national average level obscures the regional heterogeneity in the change of grain's acreage,which affect our understanding of the dynamics and law of the structural adjustment and change of grain production.Answer the following questions will help us to understanding this deeply:What characteristics,trends and laws of the change of regional grain's acreage?What differences between them?What the reasons of the regional heterogeneity in the change of regional grain's acreage?In fact,the basic reason of the change of grain production is farmers' micro production behavior adjustment.Farmers has three micro production behavior adjustment strategies in response to labor shortage and rising labor cost when they in the face of the impact of urbanization;structural adjustment of agricultural products structure,agricultural inputs structure and rural labor's employment structure.However,no matter which kind of structure adjustment need the reliability of adjustment to complete all.The complete of the substitution of agricultural production inputs' factor is not only depends on the relative relationship of the factors' price,but also depends on the difficulty of substitution between factors.Whether the difficulty of substitution between factors can explain the regional heterogeneity in the change of regional grain's acreage?And whether the difficulty of substitution between factors can influence the farmers' economic structure adjustment?And what is its influence mechanism and path in theory?This series of questions need scientific and standardized demonstration and interpretation.Therefore,this article based on the theory of induced technological change,used the national provincial data from 1990 to 2010,then empirical analyzed farmers' economic structure adjustment behavior in the context of rising labor costs from the perspective of the difficulty of substitution between factors.Studies have shown that in the context of urbanization and structural adjustment,8 kinds of regions with different economic,social,resource conditions has regional heterogeneity in the change of regional grain's acreage.The result of contribution factor decomposition model showed that,the contribution of the land quantity,multiple crop index and the change of planting structure is different in degree and direction make the basic reason of the regional heterogeneity in the change of regional grain's acreage.In fact,they are the results of farmers' micro economic behavior adjustment.And the difficulty of substitution between machinery and labor played a very important role in it.It was validated in subsequent research:Rising labor costs has significant positive effect on grain planting structure adjustment,but the positive influence will be weakened on high slope cultivated land area.Due to grain is easy to implement mechanized operation and easy to use machine instead of labor to ease the impact of the rising cost of labor,therefore,the rise in the price of labor will induce labor and relative supporting elements from seasonal recruitment and difficult mechanization crops to grain which is easy to mechanization.However,on high slope cultivated land area,due to machine is dif'ficult to replace labor,when labor costs rise,farmers cannot replace labor with mechanical to ease output compression caused by the rising cost of production.Lead to the positive effect on planting structure of grain brings by labor costs rising has been weakened.Rising labor costs has significant positive effect on the mechanical input level and the degree of mechanization,but the positive influence will be weakened on high slope cultivated land area.Rising labor costs has two aspects of effect on labor and mechanical input:on the one hand is the output effect caused by compression of agricultural production scale,at the same time reduce the machinery and labor input;On the other hand is the substitution effect caused by machine instead of labor,to avoid the scale of production decline is too large,and this leads to a mechanical input increases.Due to mechanical and labor has strong alternative,the total effect of the impact of rising labor costs is positive to mechanical input increase and mechanization degree rise.However,machine instead of labor need real conditions.Low slope cultivated land area would be able to promote alternative between elements,but on high slope cultivated land area,mechanical replace labor is difficult,therefore after rising labor costs,the development of mechanization is hindered.It has been confirmed in further study,which calculates the mechanical elasticity of substitution of labor of the region.Rising labor costs has significant positive effect on promoting rural labor employment.On high slope cultivated land area,cultivated land is finely which make mechanical replace labor is difficult.As the cost of labor rise,grain comparative disadvantage highlighted,which accelerate rural surplus labor transfer to non-agricultural industries.It also affect the change of the multiple crop index,rising labor costs has significant negative effect on the multiple crop index,but the negative influence will be improved on high slope cultivated land area.Output effect of rising labor costs will lead to food production scale compression,multi-cropping index decline.On high slope cultivated land area,mechanical replace labor is difficult,which make farmers try to strive for non-agricultural employment opportunities,reduce the labor input in agriculture,reduce the multiple crop index,when labor shortage in the busy farming season after labor cost rising.In conclusion,under the restriction of resources endowment,the difficult of mechanical alternative to labor has important influence on farmers' economic structure adjustment behavior after labor cost rising,which eventually constitute the regional heterogeneity of grain production change.This study based on the reality of the factor endowment,in-depth study obstacles and resistance in the course of changes of grain production in China,especially the influence of alternative difficulty between f-actors on grain production.It has important realistic value to realize the sustainable development of agriculture in our country,and it also has very important theoretical and practical significance to the agricultural modernization process.This study will provide farmers economic restructuring behavior with a novel,and relatively complete thinking and analysis framework for future related research.In addition,this study proposed a new research angle of view of alternative difficulty between factors,which enrich the theory of induced change and expand the application of the theory of induced technological change.