The Study On Competitiveness Of Minor Crops In Gansu Province

Minor Crops (MCs) consist of a featured part of special food crops in Gansu province. The planting area of them accounts for 18.0% of the total planting area for grain crops togther in the provinces. Their production accounts for 16% of the total grain production. MCs industry has played an active role for development of the rural local economy, increasing export and farmers'income. With the increasing demand for MCs and limited production resouces, the competition among this industry has become more and more fiercely. However, the wide category of MCs in psecies and varieties, adding strongly extension of highly profited crops as potato and corn especially in the arid area. That's why MCs planting area goes down in recent years. All together, there are many challenges ahead for MCs growing and the development of the industry in the near future.This study was based on Competitive advantage and Comparative advantage assumptions, combined theory and tools together including agricultural economics, industrial economics and basic knowledge in terms of crop cultivation with the positive approach such as survey, interview, and typical examples collection covering five aspects: the factors of production, marketing demand, relevant supporting industries, marketing entities and government policies. The study involves in analyses of determinant factors of competitiveness for MCs industry in the context of Gansu province. The results showed that the condition of natural resources is favorable, rural labor resources are abundant, the basis of scientific research is available, market demand is about to increase, etc. Meanwhile, there are some disadvantages for the sustainable developmenent of MCs industry, which include low education of the rural labor, lack of efficient industrial information communication, limted and poor environment allocated for MCs growing, less development of intermediary service for both products marketing and supply of production materials. n a word, the mis-match between small-scale production and big market consists of the struggling reality for MCs industry, which definitely confine the opportunities to tap the potential of MCs industry.For the sake to deal with the competitiveness of MCs industry, and based on the theory of competitiveness of agriculture industry, the study checked the various profiles related to the industry competitiveness, and found that the MCs industry chain is very narrow and short, and which is lack of an balanced mechanism of benefit distribution. As a direct result, MCs farmers'benefit stays at the bottom. As a typical example, a survey showed that lower willingness for farmers to grow MCs would lead the unstability of MCs quality of millet in particular. More precise nanalysis with logistic regression model on the households'data showed that willingness for farmers to grow MCs is closely related to the income expectation to grow MCs, then, influenced by the land area and labor resources available. However, the lower comparative benefit to grow MCs would be the main constraint for the development of the MCs production at the very beginning. In other words, the key issue for MCs industry development lies in how to encourage willingness of farmer in terms of growing MCs.Based on the above analyses and findings, the paper tries to raise some suggestions related to increase of the competiveness and whole production of MCs in Gansu province as follow: play comparative advantages of the primary (traditional) production factors, and actively cultivate advanced (modern) factor to improve the competitive advantage of MCs industry; Strengthen the industry chain management to promot of industrial development of MCs; By improving management system of policies to expand the sales channels; By accelerating the production of green pollution-free MCs, perfect supporting policy to guide the development of MCs.