Research On The Impact Of Land Transfer On Chemical Fertilizer Input In Grain Production

In China,it is a common phenomenon to obtain high yield by applying large amount of chemical fertilizer,and grain crops have become the main source of high-intensity input of chemical fertilizer.In addition to the low actual utilization rate and direct impact on the economic benefits of grain production,the large amount of chemical fertilizer application will also cause strong negative externalities to the ecological environment.Along with the erosion and leaching of rain,a large amount of chemical fertilizer overflowed with the surface runoff,which caused the change of soil physical and chemical properties and the decline of cultivated land fertility,and also caused a series of problems such as agricultural non-point source pollution,product quality and safety,which seriously restricted the continuous improvement of grain production quality benefit and competitiveness.With the gradual implementation of the concept of high-quality development,the overall planning of grain quantity security and quality security has become the goal content of firmly grasping the initiative of food security in the new stage.From the perspective of the evolution of agricultural management system,the international experience and national agricultural conditions showed that agricultural scale management is the inevitable choice of realizing agricultural modernization in China.Promoting land circulation and developing moderate scale management is regarded as an important breakthrough to improve the efficiency of farmers' grain production and ensure the national food quantity security,which has basically reached a consensus in the academic and policy circles.However,whether the development of land circulation and grain scale management is conducive to fertilizer reduction is still controversial in academic circles.Some scholars have expressed concern about the extensive management that may be induced by land transfer and scale management.It should be noted that the way of land transfer includes whether the land transfer is centralized and contiguous and whether the land transfer is long-term and stable.Even if the same scale of land is operated,there may be large differences in the degree of centralized connection and the stability of management right.Ignoring the relevance of these land circulation characteristics and analyzing farmers' fertilizer input behavior only from a single perspective of the change of operation scale may lead to biased results.Under the background of equal emphasis on the quantity and quality security of grain and tighter restriction of resources and environment,the question worth further study is whether the promotion of land transfer is in line with the high-quality development orientation of reducing the amount and increasing the efficiency of chemical fertilizer?Specifically:(1)From a macro perspective,what are the overall characteristics and trends of land transfer and fertilizer input in grain production in China? What is the influence mechanism of land transfer on fertilizer input in grain production and what will be the influence effect?(2)From the perspective of farmers,what are the mechanisms and effects of land transfer characteristics such as operation scale,plot concentration and management stability on the input of fertilizer in grain production?(3)The expansion of operation scale is considered to be an important incentive to encourage farmers to adopt chemical fertilizer reduction technologies.Besides the scale of operation,do the differences in technical attributes of different types of fertilizer reduction technologies lead to the restriction of farmers' technology adoption by other land transfer characteristics and factor endowments?In view of the above problems,this paper takes the influence of land transfer and transfer characteristics on the input of fertilizer in grain production as the main line of study.Under the guidance of relevant theories,this paper constructed a theoretical analysis framework of land circulation and its characteristics affecting the fertilizer input in grain production at both macro and micro levels,not only analyzed the transmission mechanism and macro influence of land transfer on the input of fertilizer in grain production,but also analyzed the micro reduction basis of land transfer characteristics from the point of farmers who rented land,and discussed the characteristics of land transfer,the farmer's technology adoption preference and the adaptability between farmers' factor endowment and fertilizer reduction technology.The main conclusions of this paper include:(1)The total amount of fertilizer applied in main grain crops in China showed a trend of increasing first and then decreasing,the inflection point appeared in 2017.However,the proportion of total amount of fertilizer application in main grain crops in total agricultural fertilizer application in China continued to increase,among which corn contributes the most to the increase of agricultural fertilizer input;wheat is the main grain crop with the largest fertilizer input per unit planting area,followed by corn and rice.Fertilizer input per unit yield of main grain crops showed fluctuation characteristics,but the fertilizer input per unit yield of wheat remained high.The chemical fertilizer application structure of main grain crops was continuously optimized.The proportion of nitrogen fertilizer continued to decrease,the proportion of mixed compound fertilizer increased rapidly,and the proportion of phosphorus fertilizer and potassium fertilizer decreased steadily.Furthermore,through stochastic frontier analysis,it was found that there was obvious technological progress in Chinese grain yield per unit area from 2005 to2018,and chemical fertilizer input had a significant positive impact on the growth of grain yield,with an elastic coefficient of 0.121.The technical efficiency of grain production and chemical fertilizer input in China has improved continuously,but the efficiency loss is still relatively serious.In 2018,the average technical efficiency of grain production at the provincial level in China was 0.798,while the average technical efficiency of chemical fertilizer input was only 0.261.The technical efficiency of fertilizer input for grain crops decreased from northeast to eastern,central and western regions,and the technical efficiency of fertilizer input in main grain producing areas was obviously better than that in non-main producing areas,and the regional gap has a widening trend.(2)China's rural land transfer shows an overall trend of continuous expansion,but the growth rate is slowing down gradually,and the regional differences are obvious.The land transfer rate in Northeast China is the highest,followed by the eastern and central regions,and the western region is the lowest.The growth rate of land transfer in main grain-producing areas was significantly faster than that in non-main grain-producing areas.The process of grain scale management in China has maintained a sustained momentum,but the growth rate has fluctuated,and the growth rate of grain sown area per labor has declined rapidly after 2014.There is a clear gap in the grain scale management process between different regions.The grain scale process in Northeast China is the fastest,followed by the central and western regions,and the grain scale management process in the eastern region is relatively lagging behind.And the process of grain scale operation in main grain producing areas is obviously faster than that in non-main grain producing areas,the gap continues to expand.(3)The empirical results showed that scale operation of grain played a part of the intermediary effect in the influence of land circulation on the intensity of chemical fertilizer input in grain production.Land transfer significantly promoted the development of scale operation of grain production,meanwhile land circulation and grain scale management had a significant reduction effect on the intensity of chemical fertilizer input in grain production.Further calculation shows that the direct effect of land circulation on fertilizer input in grain production is greater than the intermediary effect transmitted through grain scale management.(4)Based on the micro survey data analysis of land transfer households in Jiangsu Province,it is found that the average conversion amount of chemical fertilizer input per mu of rice and wheat was 30.88kg/mu and 25.48 kg/mu respectively,and the average cost of chemical fertilizer input per mu was 201.91 yuan/mu and 163.37 yuan/mu respectively,accounting for 29.78% and 31.89% of the average grain production cost.Further using the stochastic frontier production function found that both from the perspective of economic efficiency and technical efficiency point of view,there was a significant excess of fertilizer input of farmers who rented land in.The mean economic efficiency of chemical fertilizer input for wheat and rice production of sample households was 0.487 and 0.529 respectively,and the mean technical efficiency of chemical fertilizer input was 0.215 and 0.233 respectively.(5)Based on the micro survey data analysis of land transfer households in Jiangsu Province,it is found that land management scale and land tenure security have a significant negative effect on fertilizer inputs,while non-concentrated and contiguous land transfer intensified the behavior of farmers to apply more chemical fertilizer.Concentrated and contiguous land transfer has a significant moderating effect on land management scale affecting farmers' fertilizer input behavior.With the increase of land fragmentation caused by non-concentrated and contiguous land transfer,the fertilizer reduction effect caused by the expansion of business scale is also suppressed accordingly.The land tenure security does not have a significant moderating effect on land management scale,but it significantly alleviates the adverse effects from non-concentrated and contiguous land transfer.The conclusion of this paper shows that the land transfer and moderate-scale management of agriculture have positive significance to promote the reduction and efficiency of chemical fertilizer in grain production.But it is worth noting that non-concentrated and contiguous land transfer and unstable land tenure are easy to induce the occurrence of fertilizer excessive application,and even hinder the popularization and application of some fertilizer reduction technology,restrict the quality benefit and competitiveness of grain industry.Therefore,this paper puts forward some policy suggestions from the aspects of developing moderate-scale management of grain,guiding land concentrated and contiguous transfer,ensuring land tenure security,and popularizing chemical fertilizer reduction technology accurately.