Research On Spatial Layout Optimization Of Apple Production In China

Since the reform and opening up,with the advance of agricultural market-oriented reform,the apple industry has taken the lead in market-oriented reform.Induced by industrial comparative benefits,China’s apple production has been expanding and the industry has developed rapidly.Since 1988 and 1992,China’s apple area and output have been the first place in the world,and China has become the largest apple producer and consumer in the world.Apple growing areas in China have been expanded to 25 provinces(autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the Central Government)(hereinafter referred to as"provinces"),covering the Bohai Bay,Loess Plateau,ancient Yellow River,southwest plateau and northern cold.However,with the increase of urban and rural residents’income and the improvement of living standards,the upgrading of apple market demand structure is accelerating.The existing apple production and supply modes are difficult to adapt to the changes of market demand in the new era,leading to the imbalance of the total supply and quality structure in the development of apple industry.Driven by high output,high import and high cost,the pressure of supply-side structural reform of the apple industry is increasing,which highlights the necessity and urgency of optimizing the spatial layout of apple production in China.Due to the relatively high apple price,the policy support of targeted industrial poverty alleviation,the heterogeneity of farmers’rational choice and other factors,the rapid expansion of apple area in unsuitable areas and suitable areas and the excessively high increase in the proportion of production led to the decline of the overall development quality of the apple industry and amplified the natural and market risks of apple production.Apple market price continues to fluctuate,it is urgent to optimize apple production layout,reduce apple production risk and stabilize apple market price.At the same time,the apple industry has become an important pillar industry in the main producing areas.Under the situation that the existing cultivated land resources are decreasing year by year and the reserve cultivated land resources are restricted,the key to effectively guarantee the sustainable and stable development of the rural economy in the main producing areas is to give full play to the regional comparative advantages of apple production,optimize its production space layout,and improve the comprehensive productivity and market competitiveness of apple.Then,it is worth paying attention to what kind of temporal and spatial characteristics of apple production in China since the reform and opening up?How does the trajectory of the center of mass change?What is the evolution trend of apple industry economy brought by apple production?Are there regional differences?What is the driving mechanism of spatial expansion?How much more can we scale up?How to optimize?Based on the above problems,this study will provide theoretical and reference significance for the local government to further develop the production layout of high-quality development of apple industry.On the basis of relevant research review,literature review,concept definition and theoretical analysis,descriptive statistics,spatial statistical analysis,spatial econometric model,GIS technology and other methods are comprehensively applied.Based on the panel data of 31 provinces from 1978 to 2020 and 617 counties(prefecture-level cities/county-level cities/districts)(hereinafter referred to as"counties")in 6 provinces in China’s major apple producing areas from 1999 to 2019 for nearly 21 years.In this study,the five major divisions of apple planting in China since the reform and opening up were repeated,and according to the theory of agricultural regional planning and the theory of suitability,the characteristics of regionalization changes under the comprehensive action of many ecological factors were discussed.Finally,the regionalization was adjusted appropriately,and there were three ecological environment regions(the"three habitat regions"for short),namely,the advantageous area,the suitable area and the unsuitable area.Then,based on the three major habitat areas,the paper focuses on the temporal and spatial evolution and transfer track of apple production in China,the characteristics of regional changes of apple total factor productivity,the spatial distribution and spatial spillover effect of the comparative advantage of apple production region,the selection and efficiency improvement of apple production region,and the measurement of apple production scale.According to the comprehensive analysis of the above content,combined with China’s national conditions,put forward the corresponding policy enlightenment.Specifically,the main research contents and conclusions are as follows:(1)The characteristics of ecological suitability zoning for apple planting are more consistent with China’s apple production conditions.Based on the daily data sets of meteorological data from 699 baseline and basic weather stations in China during 1978-2020,seven raster annual data sets of ecological suitability indexes in recent 43 years were calculated by using the seven ecological suitability indexes corresponding to the seven production areas divided by the modern apple industry system in China.Using GIS technology,the characteristics of climatic zoning changes for apple planting in China in recent 43 years were analyzed.The principal component method was used to comprehensively rank the climatic regionalization of apple planting in China and cluster analysis was used to analyze the spatial characteristics of climatic regionalization change in China.Based on the perspective of agro-ecological development under the background of post-epidemic disease,apple planting regionalization was adjusted based on the theory of suitability and the comprehensive effects of various ecological conditions,such as climate,topography,ecological functional area,soil and vegetation.In the past 43 years,the five producing areas have shown obvious"westward migration"and"northward expansion"outside and within the region respectively.From the perspective of the three habitat areas,the advantageous areas of apple planting in China are located in Bohai Bay and Loess Plateau,the suitable areas are mainly located in the Northeast Plain,part of the old Yellow River,Sichuan Basin and its surrounding,Tarim Basin and Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau,and the unsuitable areas are mainly located in South China and the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau.Based on this,the advantageous areas of the three habitat areas after adjustment include 57 counties in 10 cities in Liaoning,14 districts in Beijing,15 districts in Tianjin,108 counties in 10 cities in Hebei,114 counties in 16 cities in Shandong,151 counties in 18 cities in Henan,67 counties in 8 cities in Shanxi,36counties in six cities in Shaanxi,three counties in Guyuan in Ningxia,and 67 counties in 13cities in Gansu.The suitable areas include 63 counties in eight cities in Heilongjiang,43counties in eight cities in Jilin,32 counties in five cities in Inner Mongolia,29 counties in five cities in Xinjiang,91 counties in 13 cities in Jiangsu,95 counties in 16 cities in Anhui,32 counties in Chongqing,126 counties in 18 cities in Sichuan,59 counties in nine cities in Yunnan,22 counties in four cities in Guizhou,and 15 counties in four cities in Tibet.The unsuitable areas include all counties of Shanghai,Zhejiang,Hubei,Hunan,Jiangxi,Fujian,Guangdong,Guangxi,Hainan and Qinghai provinces.(2)The center of gravity of apple production showed an obvious trend of"southwest"movement,and was close to the Yellow River year by year.Based on the dual perspectives of climate change and land transfer,the spatial variation and potential effects of apple output increase in China were investigated by using the apple output data,meteorological data and land use remote sensing data matching the same precision in 31 provinces of China during 1978-2019.Apple production in China has been growing continuously for nearly 42 years.At the same time,there is a significant spatial difference in apple production.The Yellow River is the main water supply for agricultural irrigation in north China,and the center of gravity of apple production shows an obvious trend of moving"southwest"and getting closer to the Yellow River year by year.The absolute and relative growth of apple output in China reflects the rapid growth of Huang-Huai-hai plain and Loess plateau,especially the Loess Plateau,which has gradually become the main contribution area of apple production.Apple production in China has moved to the Loess Plateau where habitat is fragile and land productivity is low.Although apple production is growing year by year,the system is more fragile and unstable than ever before.In recent years,with the continuous response of policies,the afforestation volume of forest land in Shaanxi-Gansu,which is located in the vulnerable habitat area,is the advantageous area for apple planting.SPEI played a significant role in apple production increase.(3)The"westward shift"of apple production efficiency is obvious,and the non-suitable area has gradually become an important production area of apple.Considering the national characteristics of the difference of apple production factor endowment in China,a spatio-temporal heterogeneous elastic production function model based on the improvement of capital stock and considering the time and space factors was used to measure the TFP of apple in China during 1985-2020 by using the panel data of 21provinces in China,and its transition characteristics and regional differences were analyzed.It can be found that the capital stock of apple industry obtained from the long panel data plays a positive role in the development of China’s agricultural economy.The Cobb-Douglas production function including time and space factors can estimate the time-varying and heterogeneity of factor output elasticity,which is better than the traditional production function method,and can obtain the time-varying factor output elasticity of inter-provincial differences,which has good statistical significance and economic significance.In the past 36 years,the TFP growth rate of apple was significantly higher in the years with increasing distribution than in the years with negative distribution.Apple production showed a"westward shift"in the three habitat areas,four production areas and three regions.Under the effect of diminishing returns to scale,the change of apple spatial layout in China has spilled over from the advantageous areas to the suitable areas,and the non-suitable areas have also changed into the important production areas of apple,gradually forming the apple scale management model.(4)Regional comparative advantage differentiation is obvious,there is a significant spillover effect of adjacent space.Since there may be some spatial correlation in apple production,regional natural endowment determines that it is difficult to achieve complete division of apple industry development in the region.Therefore,based on the perspective of advantageous areas,thinking from the county economy has become an inevitable premise to explore the economic development of China’s apple industry.Based on the spatial layout of apple production comparative advantage,this part discusses the spillover effect of apple production space between different regions.From the perspective of change characteristics,the regions with comparative advantages in apple production are concentrated in the north of the Yangtze River basin and Xizang,and distributed from west to east along the Yellow River Basin.In the past 43 years,the apple production in Tibet,Shaanxi,Shanxi,Gansu,Guizhou,Hebei,Shandong and Inner Mongolia has a good comprehensive production advantage(from high to low).Ningxia,Jilin,Hubei and Inner Mongolia do not have comprehensive advantages in apple production(from high to low).From the perspective of spatial mechanism decomposition,apple production in China has a significant adjacent spatial spillover effect.The AAI in the eastern and central regions can promote the development of the local apple industry,but it has a negative spillover effect.Urbanization rate promotes the development of apple industry in the eastern region,but it has a significant negative externality,and a significant positive externality in the western region.Natural endowments(SPEI and RUE)boosted the apple industry in and around the western,but not in the central region.The policy promoted the development of the apple industry in the eastern,central and western and neighboring regions.(5)Fertiliser machinery input was a prerequisite for apple production layout in the main producing areas.The balanced and coordinated allocation of cost-ecological factors is the key problem to promote the development of apple industry.In this part,21 index systems of cost-ecology are constructed from the perspectives of labor cost,opportunity cost of farmers to plant apples,mechanical input of chemical fertilizer,resource endowment,meteorological factors,ecological pressure and topography.The grey correlation model and Topsis model were used to identify the optimal allocation of factor input to promote regional apple output,and the selection of the optimal region for apple production in the region with the optimal allocation of factors was further obtained.It can be seen that from west to east,the regions with a significant and sustained growth trend of apple production in the future will be concentrated in the eastern edge of Gansu,northern,central and southern Shaanxi,western and central Henan,northern,central and southern Shanxi,northern,central and southern Hebei,western,central and eastern Shandong,a total of 197counties.Shandong and Shaanxi will achieve the implementation of apple production to the county scale implementation effect.In recent 21 years,due to different development types and resource endowments in different counties,fertilizer machinery input(weight 0.1436)is a prerequisite for apple production layout.In Hebei,Shandong,Shanxi and Henan,input of water and fertilizer has a significant positive adjustment effect on the impact of cost input on apple production.In terms of the selection of priority regions in 2019,the regions with the highest apple production efficiency were in northern and southern Hebei,eastern and western Shandong,central and southern Shanxi,western Henan,central and northern Shaanxi,and northeastern and southern Gansu,with the best factor allocation.(6)Apple production efficiency plays a significant positive regulating role in the coordinated development of urbanization and apple production.In response to the post-pandemic global food security,China’s urbanization process has increasingly stressed the scale of apple production.This part takes the main apple producing areas of 617 counties in 6 provinces of China as the basic research unit,which can measure the optimal scale of apple production in a more comprehensive way.Based on the apple production panel data from 1999 to 2019,the panel threshold regression model was used to study the relationship between urbanization and apple production under the adjustment effect of total factor productivity.It can be seen that China’s urbanization has a double threshold effect on apple production.When ln TFP is lower than 1.618,urbanization has a weak stress effect on apple production.When ln TFP was between 1.618 and 2.020,urbanization process had a significant effect on the stress of apple production.When ln TFP was no less than 2.020,urbanization reduced the apple production scale in Henan and Gansu,reaching 1.025×10~4t.From 1999 to 2019,the optimal scale of apple production was258 counties from central Hebei to northern and nearly the whole Shandong.It"moved westward"to Gansu,Shaanxi and Henan and nearly the whole Shanxi,a total of 243counties,which was the optimal region with conditions for expansion of factor allocation.(7)The optimization of apple production space layout in China can be realized only by using multiple strategies.Apple production is a systematic agricultural activity,which to some extent depends on the supply level of various factors,factor matching and policy guarantee system to ensure the role of factors and efficiency improvement in apple production process.Based on the results of this study and the reality of the economic development of the apple industry in China,the following suggestions are put forward from the perspective of narrowing the regional gap of apple production and promoting the coordination of regional economy.First,to correctly cope with the impact of natural disasters,scientific planning of apple production,and reasonable distribution of advantageous production areas;Second,the essence of apple TFP growth is technological progress and improvement of technical efficiency;Third,based on the local area,fully consider the interaction of apple production in the interregional impact,the implementation of regional differences in apple production policies;Fourth,we should give full play to the positive regulating role of productivity in the coordinated development of urbanization and regional apple production,improve regional apple production efficiency,and ensure the sustainability of urbanization and apple production activities.