An Analysis On The Factors Affecting Scale Evolution Of Hog Production

In order to promote China’s large-scale hog farming to be more efficient and sustainable, this study analyzes the development of hog farming in China, factors affecting the development of large-scale farming. Firstly, using macro data, this study analyzes the degree and process of scale evolution of hog production. Hog production in China has not deeply developed to larger scale. Most of the farms are small and medium size. The scale hog farming increases from23.2%in1998to64.51%in2010. The small-scale accounts for30.01%, medium-scale accounts for27.9%but the large-scale only accounts for6.6%. Pork demand, grain supply and government subsidy policy maybe the main factors promote scale farming.As China is a big country, different production areas are not all the same, the development of scale farming of different areas is uneven. The hog production of Sichuan Province ranks first, however, the evolution of scale farming ranks24th which is far behind provinces at the same yield level, such as Henan province ranking the7th and Shandong province ranking the11th.Analysing the scale evolution of Sichuan Province can provide reference for policy-making. This study composed of7chapters, analyzing the factors from the macroscopic and microscopic view and the perspective of economic benefits.This study gets144valid questionnaires from Santai County, a main hog producing county in Sichuan Province. Then basing on the survey data, this paper analyzes the efficiency of scale hog farming by Data Envelopment Analysis. Larger farms have more scale efficiency, but medium size farms have more technical efficiency. Larger farms are more professional in technology, farm construction and disease control. And larger farms have more convenient channels for purchasing piglet and feed and selling pork.However, economical efficiency can’t explain the course of scale evolution totally, so by the ordinal logit regression model, this paper finds that farmers with capital advantages prefer larger scale than others. The capital include generations in the village, relatives in the government, family fixed assets, experience of hog production and the costs for operation, whether join the cooperative, the distance from the highways, and land availability.According to the research conclusion, this study can give such policy implications:Give full play to the advantages of each kind of scale hog farming, built a reasonable structure of scale hog production. Sichuan province can develop a "Olive" type hog producing structure. And to realize scale economy of hog production, it is necessary for the government to provide supports to farmers with more property and social capital to hold large scale hog farming, design and build enough transportation facilities and ameliorate the circulation of rural land, then realize the "family farm" and organize the farms through cooperatives.