Technical Efficiency Of Small Farms In China In Context Of Enhancing Agricultural Competitiveness

China is facing a major paradox that needs to be solved urgently: how to improve agricultural competitiveness on the basis of smallholder farmers.It is generally believed that increasing the competitiveness of agriculture requires scale,marketization,and intensification.However,in China,which is now highly industrialized,the micro-foundation of agriculture is still smallholder farmers,and for a long time to come,they still play an important role.Small farms are small and scattered,and lack of motivation to accept and use modern agricultural technologies.However,to enhance the competitiveness of China's agriculture,we must face up to the reality of the large number of small farms.Therefore,the research questions are:i)What is the internal logic of the development of small farms from the perspective of improving agricultural competitiveness? ii)Is the technical efficiency of small farms in China low? What factors affect the technical efficiency of small farms? and iii)Based on China's resource endowments and institutional constraints,what kind of path should China take for small farms to develop and enhance agricultural competitiveness? The goal of this research is to understand the role of small farmers in enhancing China's agricultural competitiveness,evaluate their technical efficiency scores,and explore the factors that restrict the development of small farmers,so as to give full play to the advantages of small farms,overcome their disadvantages,and enhance agricultural competitiveness.This article includes the following main parts:(1)The inherent mechanism of small farms from the perspective of the improvement of China's agricultural competitiveness.Firstly,this article demonstrates the necessity of enhancing China's agricultural competitiveness from three aspects,that is practical logic,historical logic and theoretical logic,and puts forward the scientific connotation of agricultural competitiveness with Chinese characteristics based on China's national conditions and agricultural conditions.Secondly,this article demonstrates that the development of small farmers plays an important role in enhancing the competitiveness of China's agriculture from the three aspects of the scientific connotation of agricultural competitiveness with Chinese characteristics.Thirdly,this article uses Marx's theory of productivity and production relations to construct a "four-in-one" theoretical system for the development of small farms and applies this theory to analyze the internal logic of the development of small farmers in the context of enhancing agricultural competitiveness.(2)The technical efficiency of small farms.This includes: i)constructing an analysis framework of the technical efficiency of small farms and explains the content and empirical strategies of the evaluation of the development efficiency of small farms.ii)using farm-level survey data conducted in July 2016 and October2017 in China and a stochastic metafrontier production function,this study investigated the technical efficiency score of crop-specific farms in China.iii)demographic and socioeconomic factors(e.g.land transfer,farm location)are examined to further investigate how crop-specific farms behave differently in relation to farm efficiency.(3)Development path optimization.This contains: i)comparing the different basic agricultural conditions between Netherlands,Japan and China,analyzes the experience and practices of the Netherlands and Japan in developing small farms and ii)proposing ideas and key policy recommendations for optimizing the development of small farms based on the conclusions of empirical analysis and the enlightenment of international experience.The conclusions are:(1)We should not ignore small farms and small farms must to be developed in order to improve China's agricultural competitiveness.The characteristics of small farms make the development of them have the potential to enhance the competitiveness of agriculture.The existence and development of small farms are reasonable and long-term,and will follow internal logic to achieve their own development.Under the premise of human,land,resource constraints and institutional constraints,China will blaze a trail of innovation and development that suits China's national conditions and leads small farms to develop productivity and move toward common prosperity.(2)Small farms are highly efficient regarding the group technical efficiency,so the proposition of "small farm development efficiency is low" does not apply to China's agriculture in the context of enhancing agricultural competitiveness.Familybased small farm will continue to play an important role in a long period of time and demonstrate resilience.However,small farms have low metafrontier technical efficiency scores due to the insufficient application of advanced technologies.There is substantial scope for small farms to improve their technical efficiency with the given resources and technology.(3)Technologies differ between crop-specific farms and the separation of production frontiers for crop-specific farms is preferred.Public providers were found to be unsuccessful at providing extension services to farmers and increasing farm efficiency,while statistical support was identified for cooperatives' positive impact on farms' technical efficiency.Farms with a high share of sold products tended to use market extension services and were associated with higher farm efficiency levels.Content of extension services affect the technical efficiency of small farms.Farms that leased in land have a positive and highly significant effect on efficiency,while in contrast farms that leased out have lower technical efficiency scores.(4)Economies with different resource endowments choose different paths to the modernization of agriculture.The focus of the optimization path for the development of smallholder farmers in China includes six aspects: enhance agricultural support policies,promote technology innovation and application,apply appropriate scale operation of farmland,target a pluralistic and well-functioning extension provision system,increase the function of farmer cooperatives,and improve farmers' human capital.This paper makes four contributions to the literature.First,this article introduces the perspective of the improvement of agricultural competitiveness to explore the development of small farms.This article deepens the research on the organic connection between small farms and modern agriculture,and links the promotion of agricultural competitiveness with the development of small farms,and studies the dialectical unity relationship between them in the new era of China.Second,this article emphasizes the safety of agricultural development,incorporates agricultural safety factors into the study of China's agricultural competitiveness,and constructs a theoretical system of agricultural competitiveness with Chinese characteristics.Most literature only used quantitative indicators to measure and compare the competitiveness of agricultural products from the aspects of production cost and market share,with little consideration of agricultural safety factors.There is also no literature to construct a theoretical system of agricultural competitiveness with Chinese characteristics.However,the characteristics of China's big country determine that China's agriculture must first meet the requirements of a populous country for the quantity,variety,and quality of agricultural products before it can export and participate in international competition.Third,this article systematically analyzes the inner logic of the development of small farms based on Marx's theory of multi-level productivity and diversified production relations,and explains the motivation and direction of the development of contemporary Chinese small farmers.Existing studies mostly verify the influencing factors that affect the development of smallholder farmers from the empirical level,and have not formed a systematic academic explanation of the internal mechanism of smallholder farmers' development.This article uses Marxist theory of multi-level productivity and production relations to construct a "four-inone" theoretical system of "logical premise-social basis-power source-institutional guarantee" for the development of small farmers,and analyzes the internal logic of the development of small farmers.Fourth,instead of providing an aggregating impact for crop-specific farms,this paper stratifies the impacts to include a differentiated production function by crop,and amplifies how crop type variety is reflected in the efficiency outcomes observed.Moreover,instead of using simple indicators to measure extension services,this study goes further than the previous literature by applying multiple indicators,such as extension sources and information types,and distinguishing between farmers' adoption and the availability of extension services in order to deepen understanding about what works well in relation to farm performance.This paper has the following main research prospects: First,improve the index system of agricultural competitiveness with Chinese characteristics,and comprehensively verify the relationship between agricultural competitiveness and the development of small farms.Second,using macro,micro and time series data to analysis farms' efficiency and their determinants.Last but not least,considering price and cost and evaluate economic efficiency and allocation efficiency of small farms in China.