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Relationship Between Farm Size And Land Productivity

Posted on:2016-11-21Degree:DoctorType:Dissertation
Country:ChinaCandidate:M J YuFull Text:PDF
GTID:1319330518981421Subject:Agricultural Economics and Management
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The relationship between farm size and productivity is a hot topic in development economics since it may provide economic guide for the policy on land distribution. The productivity here means land productivity measured by agricultural yields per unit area.The internal logic of land distribution, farm size and land productivity is: if there is an inverse relationship between farm size and land productivity, we have good reasons to suggest that the land redistribution between small and large farmers could increase agricultural yields and food availability, and meanwhile decrease assets and income inequality; if there is an positive relationship between farm size and land productivity, it offers theory support for land circulation and scale management of agriculture. Because of these opposite policy directions, study on the relationship between farm size and land productivity runs through the entire research on agricultural economy.Meanwhile, the land issue was the key point in Chinese rural development, since China is a country with large population but few land. In fact, as to the history of Chinese rural development, the land redistribution policy had been changed sever times. Scholars and policy makers were in disagreement of whether it should be "small-scale" or "scale business" in the end of 19th century and the early of 20th century. That time was an important period as a link between past and future, which could re-evaluate the Chinese traditional economy, the impact of the West on Chinese economy and the effect of revolution. Land and its relevant issues were age-old since they were the focus of that special period. However, due to different data and research perspective, there were several debates over land issues, such as the relationship between farm size and productivity relating to land re-distribution.What was the relationship between farm size and land productivity in early 20th century China? What were the factors influencing this specific relationship? What was its internal mechanism? Was the later land redistribution good or bad for Chinese agriculture or even the whole Chinese economy? Did it really improve people's welfare without increasing agricultural land? Or did it really hinder development of the agricultural economy of scale? So far, there were no conclusive statements. What can we learn from the answers to these questions for agricultural scale business nowadays? What can we learn from history?Considering these questions, based on Buck's original household data, this paper makes theoretical analysis and empirical study on the relationship between farm size and land productivity of 8 farm areas whose natural and social economical characteristics were totally different, and further sorts out its influencing factors and internal mechanism. The research contents and relating conclusions are as follows:Content 1: The characteristics of Chinese traditional agriculture including relationship between farm area and land productivity.relationship between farm size and land productivity in 1920/30s China.The objective of this section is to examine whether there was an inverse relationship between farm size and land productivity in 1920/30s China based on characteristics of Chinese traditional agriculture. Based on Buck's original data, it can be found that the farm area was quite small and level of land productivity was low as well, meanwhile, there was an inverse relationship between farm size and land productivity in Chinese traditional agriculture, although the degrees of this inverse relationship were different among 8 farm areas. Besides, "tenant peasant?small farmer" and the number of totally autarky peasants was quite small, both of which were different from inherent phases.Content 2: the fundamental factors influencing the inverse relationship between farm size and land productivity.Aiming at investigating the fundamental factors resulting in different land productivities among different-sized farmers for policy advice on achieving scale management of agriculture, this section adds land quality variable and an variable of the degree of factor markets development represented by labor market to the original CD production function respectively, to examine whether the land quality differences and imperfect factor markets development were the fundamental factors influencing the inverse relationship between farm size and land productivity. The results illustrate that small farmers had the inherent advantages of predominate land quality, which was one the most important reasons resulting in this inverse relationship, and the more obvious of land quality differences, the stronger of inverse relationship. In addition, what had more policy implications was that the labor market had been forming at that time to promote the seasonal and permanent labor transfer, however,labor market could slightly weaken but not eliminate this inverse relationship since its imperfect mechanism.Content 3: the internal mechanism of imperfect factor markets on inverse relationship.The goal of this section is to further explore the internal mechanism of imperfect factor markets represented by labor market on inverse relationship between farm size and land productivity. The study starts with the impact of imperfect labor market on labor input among different-sized households,and finds that small farmers used much higher density of family labor and also had more labor per unit area. Then, combined with the relevant features of traditional agriculture, it can be showed that the specific labor use structure of small farmers largely reflected higher multiple cropping index, more fertilize application,more labor-intensive crops planting, all of which could improve land productivity, and the substitution effect of labor animals which had a limited impact on land productivity since they were used inadequately.According to the above results, this paper gives conclusions as follows: there was an inverse relationship between farm size and land productivity in 1920/30s China; the inherent advantages of predominate land quality of small farmers was one of the important factors influencing inverse relationship; the labor market had been forming at that time, but its imperfection was the other reason of inverse relationship; imperfect factor markets resulted in different labor use structure and different land productivity through distinct agricultural production behavior among different-sized farmers. Therefore, purely from a historical sense, these conclusions support a series of subsequent land reform policies from an economic perspective.Meanwhile, this paper draws several useful conclusions about traditional agriculture:the impact of land ownership on land productivity may be different through different areas;the positive effect of labor market development on land productivity had already appeared in traditional agriculture on the premise that agricultural machinery could be used; the positive effect of education on land productivity and labor transfer demonstrates a rich history of the important roles of knowledge and education in agricultural development.Based the above, this paper puts forward policy advices including: 1. Deepening labor market development, promoting permanent transfer of rural surplus labor force; 2.Achieving an active and innovative land rental market, formulating fair and stable policies of land market; 3. Continuing to increase agricultural technology investment, improving rural education.
Keywords/Search Tags:1920/30s, Farm Size, Land Productivity, Traditional Agriculture, Factor Market, Buck
PDF Full Text Request
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