Research On Market Behaviour Of Growers:Evidence From The Banana Industry In Hainan

Along with the rapid growth of the national economy and the growing comprehensive national strength, the technological innovative ability of China’s banana industry has been enhanced and the banana industry makes a speed development. However, there are hidden risks behind the fast development of the banana industry. The stronger the banana industry grows, the more prominent the industry risks are, and in turn the risks restrict the development of the banana industry. The banana growers are the main force and risk takers in the banana production. Besides the traditional natural risk and family internal risk, the growers shall response all kinds of the sudden market risks. As the rural marketization process is speeding up, the degree of the agricultural product commercialization goes deeper and the degree of participation of the growers is increased, accompanying with an upsurge of market risks. The prices become more volatile affected by banana’s long productive period, low concentration degree, smaller product differentiation, partial proportionality of agricultural product price, sharp diffusion of cobweb effect. In the setup of small manufactures and a big market, the decentralized operation makes the growers vulnerable during the market transaction process.As a weathervane of China’s banana industrial development, the banana industry in Hainan is the pillar to increase the local agricultural efficiency and farmers’income, and has made important contribution to the development of tropical agriculture of Hainan. However, due to frequent abnormal weather, further spread of blight in the producing area of Hainan and especially the changing and unpredictable market in recent years, the growers have suffered heavy losses and the banana industry’s contribution to income growth of farmers in Hainan is on the decline. Consequently, from the banana industry in Hainan, to probe the coping mechanism for the banana market risks in view of micro subjects will have realistic directive significance for the banana growers to circumvent the market risks effectively.Based on this, the author uses the farmer behavior theory, transaction cost theory, statistics and other relevant theories to construct an analytical framework of banana growers’ market conduct. Taking systemic carding of the industrial development background and market environment change as the necessary background of the study on banana growers’market conduct, the author also evaluates the effectiveness of farmers’each market conduct by analysis of means and analysis of variance with cost-benefit ratio as evaluation index. Then, it is to construct growers’market conduct IF evaluation index combined with transaction cost theory and to verify the theoretical assumption by logistic regression model. At last, according to the research conclusions, the author builds the tripartite cooperation model of government, enterprises and farmers to standardize banana growers’transaction conduct and help them to make better risk decisions.The research conclusions indicate that the customer-relationship building, the alliance of agricultural enterprises and farming communities, the contract farming development, the banana brand building and the advancement of safety sense, all of these can promote the growers’cost-benefit ratio increase. The selection of target customers is influenced differently by the different transaction costs. And affected by growers’ transaction practices and bounded rationality, the selection of target customers is influenced insignificantly by indeterminacy of information value, universality of oral agreements and imperfect of development of cooperation.This study has the prominent features:the first is the new perspective. It is bold in innovation by studying the banana market risks at the micro level, and provides a fresh view for the banana research; the second is the literature review and theoretical innovation. The author combines transaction cost theory, the farmers’conduct theory and the banana industry’s characteristics by systematically grasping the present research trend, and expands the applied range of related theories. The third is the combination of theoretical model and empirical analysis. It adopts logistic regression model to verify the theory of banana growers’ market conduct, and does a contribution to the status of more qualitative research and less quantitative research on banana.There are two problems that need in-depth study:one is to expand the study area. Limited by time, energy and funds, the author merely surveyed the banana growers in Hainan. There is something in common of the five major banana production areas at home, but they remain respective distinctions. It is a big pity not to investigate and compare the features of the production areas and it needs further discussion and in-depth research on whether the conclusions are suitable for other production areas; the other is to extend the research category of risks. This paper only aims at studying the market risks which are limited. In the practice, farmers face not only the market risks but also the nature risk, technical risk, information risk and family risk etc. As a result, the author will start from the overall level of farmers’production, combine other risks in the banana industry and make a system analysis on the coping mechanism for industrial risks systematically in the subsequent research.