| For a long time,the research on the relationship between the scale of farmers' operation and the agricultural productivity has kept up,and their relationship has always been controversial.Different scholars have drawn very different conclusions from studies on different regions,countries,periods and different crop varieties.From the initial reverse relationship to the positive relationship,and to the proposed inverted ?U? Type hypothesis,while enriching the content of relevant research,the deeper level of questions are presented.Namely,what is the relationship between the scale of farmers' operation and the agricultural productivity? Whether there is an objective law in the changes in the scale of operation.Is there a path that can be relied upon to realize the modernization of small farmers? Since the 18 th National Congress of the Communist Party of China,on which explicitly proposed the fostering of new types of agricultural business entities,the development of new types of agricultural business entities in China has been rapid,and it has gradually played a role in ensuring national food security and effective supply of major agricultural products.It has become a consensus of all sectors of society that a moderate scaled operation should be developed.However,as a developing agricultural country,the small farmers are still the main part of China's agricultural operation.The vast majority of farmers have an operation scale of less than 2 hectares.Therefore,the study on the relationship between the scale of farmers' operation and the agricultural productivity at the current stage is important to achieve convergence between the small farmers and the modern agriculture,and to promote the transformation of small farmers in China.Based on the data system of the national rural fixed observation sites in China,the periodic characteristics of the small farmer development in China were analyzed,the relationships of different regions,different crop varieties,and operating scales of different types of farmers with the agricultural productivity were deeply studied,and the factors affecting the scale of farmers' operation and the influencing mechanism were explored in detail.The innovation of this study is mainly reflected in the following three aspects.Firstly,the study on the relationship between the farmers' operating scale and the agricultural productivity was extended from the static and single dimension to the dynamic and multi-dimension.These would help to understand the periodic characteristics and the change paths of small farmers in China.Based on the continuous large sample data of the national rural fixed observation sites in China,a comparative study on the relationship between the farmers' operating scale and the agricultural productivity was conducted in this paper,and the study on the relationship between the farmers' operating scale and the agricultural productivity was expanded from single region,single crop variety,and single period to different regions,different crop varieties and different periods in China,which realized the systematic analysis of the dynamic changes of the above relationship.It was found that,since the new century,the development of small farmers in China showed new periodic characteristics.For example,the average scale of farmers' operation changed from decreasing to increasing,the number of small-scale farmers and large-scale farmers increased,but the number of moderate-scale farmers declined,and such difference was significant.The relationships between the dynamic changes of the indicators(such as family characteristics,operating farmland,grain income,agricultural operation income,single factor productivity,and so on)and the farmers' operating scale reached a significant level.For example,the proportion of grain revenue to total income started to exceed 50 percent when the average scale of farmers' operation was more than 2 hectares.Aiming at different crop varieties and different periods,significant difference was marked in the change of the relationship between the farmers' operating scale and the agricultural productivity.For example,since the 12 th Five-Year Plan Period,the relationship between the land productivity of grain crops and the farmers' operating scale in China changed significantly,showing a trend of significantly reverse direction transformation from the early stage to the current significantly positive direction,which indicated that the advantage of large-scale operation of grain crops was appearing,and significant differences in such advantage were noted.Secondly,the relationships between the production productivity and the operating scales of different crop varieties were analysed empirically,and the existence of optimal operating scale was proved.In order to solve the problem(i.e.,was there an optimal scale of farmers' operation?),the single term and the quadratic term of the farmers' operating scale were put into the model equation of different crop varieties.The relationship between the production productivity and the operating scale of different crop varieties was recorded by estimating the single term and the quadratic term coefficients,and the existence of optimal operating scale was verified,and the reasons were further analysed through the comparative study of different crop varieties.It was found that significant differences in the relationship between the total factor productivity and the scale of farmers' operation were marked among different grain varieties,and the inverted "U" shape relationship between the total factor productivity of wheat(or rice)and the scale of farmers' operation reached a significant level,with the turning point appearing at about 2 hectares.This result objectively confirmed the existence of optimal operation scale for the wheat and the rice farming,and meanwhile complemented the conclusion of previous studies that ?small farmers were more efficient?.A significant relationship was recorded between the technical efficiency of four crop varieties(wheat,rice,corn and soybean)and the farmers' operating scale.The correlation of the farmers' operating scale with the wheat,rice or maize was positive,but that with the soybean was negative.In addition,based on the non-balanced panel data,the impact of the factors(such as education level,household age,non-farm employment,technological progress,and arable land fragmentation)on the technical efficiency and the total factor productivity were also considered.Thirdly,the changing path of the optimal farmers' operating scale and the influence mechanism of important influencing factors were systematically analysed.Based on the theory framework of traditional economics,the changing path of the optimal farmers' operating scale was studied,and the influence mechanism of the important factors(such as agricultural science and technology progress,agricultural land system,agricultural policy,new urbanization,the change of population structure,and so on)was systematically analysed.With the rapid development of new urbanization,the opportunity cost of agricultural production is still rising,the attraction to the rural labour force is still continuing,and the scale of farmers' operation is expanding which will be accelerated by the change of population structure.To promote the rural revitalization,the timely formulation on the corresponding policies should be conducted. |
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