Research On Factors Influencing The Mechanization Of Sugarcane Planting In China

More than 90% of sugars which are the important strategic material comes from saccharose. The basic supply of sugar is directly related to sugarcane producing. In recent years, under the impact of foreign sugar market and the rise of cost in agricultural labor force, the industry of sugar have been confronted with losses, which seriously affect the safety of China's sugar supply and social stability. The problems will be solve by advancing the mechanization of sugarcane, which can reduce cost of sugarcane producing and improve labor productivity. The Chinese government have achieved remarkable results in improving the mechanization level of sugarcane producing through the construction of demonstration base, the subsidies policy and enhancing technical standard. However, the sugarcane mechanization in the link of planting and harvest is still difficult to get popular. Planting mechanization is the basis of harvest mechanization, its complexity is far lower than the harvest mechanization. So, why the level of sugarcane mechanization in China is lower?Under the management system of small-scale farmers in China, the key of promoting the development of sugarcane mechanization is to explore the influence factors of sugarcane mechanization as well as the different influence of various factors in the different ways of mechanization planting. In this paper, we mainly choose Chinese sugarcane farmers as the research object, and analyze the present situation of sugarcane mechanization from the perspective of production factors, which to attest the mechanization planting is more advantages than artificial planting in cost and efficiency. We construct the framework about the behavior of farmer adopting mechanization by summarizing the influence factors of sugarcane mechanization and the interaction between influence factors, and then use the empirical analysis method to research the influence degree of these factors and its interactions. Meanwhile, we make a deep analysis on the differences in the effect of factors that affect on diversity planting form, and focus on how to promote sugarcane mechanization.The main conclusions are as follows:First, mechanization planting is more advantages than artificial cultivation in sugarcane planting, and the advantage of fully mechanized planting form is more significant. The elasticity of substitution between sugarcane planting machinery and labor is 0.15. It means that we can take advantage of the planting machine instead of labor to lower the total cost brought by the rising of the labor prices in China's sugarcane planting. It is beneficial to the improvement of the sugarcane income and household income that sugarcane planting machinery to replace labour, and the way of speeding up the development of sugarcane mechanization is in line with the economic law of development. The fully mechanized planting way has more advantage than other planting form in cost and efficiency. Its efficiency is more than 5 times by comparing with artificial cultivation, and it can save 177.15 yuan of per acre in cultivation cost.Second, the key factors that affect sugarcane mechanization are sugarcane specialization degree, overall land quality, whether is plain. And the overall land quality has significant positive interaction effects with age, the proportion of agricultural labor force, whether is plain, the price of machinery operation and the per capita income of households, but it has negative interaction in sugarcane income ratio.Third, the effect of land fragmentation, per capita income of households and education years is different in diversity planting form. When the average parcel area of farmers is more than 10 mu, the land fragmentation has no effect on whether to adopt mechanical planting sugarcane. The land fragmentation did not hinder the inter-conversion between lower patterns of the mechanized planting. Furthermore, the land fragmentation has no effect on the whole mechanized planting pattern when the average parcel area of farmers is in the range of 5 to 10 mu. For low income level of farmers, it is beneficial to promote the development of sugarcane mechanization by improving the per capita income of households, but it is not significant effect in high income level of farmers. In family policy makers of primary school or below, the education years of family policy makers is significant in all the planting ways, but it is not significant in family policy makers of junior middle school and above.Fourth, the key factors that affect the whole mechanized planting pattern are whether to participate in the training of agricultural machinery,whether to join the agricultural cooperatives and sugarcane income ratio. Meanwhile, we should combine the goals of short-term and long-term to achieve the full mechanization in sugarcane cultivation. In the short term, we can change the condition to adapt to the application of plant machinery. In the long term, we should research suitable planting machine to meet the various needs of farmers.