Analysis Of Agricultural Production Efficiency For Countieson Theloess Plateau

The development of agriculture on the Loess Plateau region plays a significant role in the development of China's agricultural.However,the agriculture in the region is facing challenges resulting from severe erosion,poor soil,frequently occurring natural hazards and droughts.It is necessary to improve agricultural production efficiency in order to overcome the challenges and to ensure the sustainable development of the agriculture on the Loess Plateau.Therefore,this paper tries to study the change of agricultural production efficiency in the Loess Plateau with 281 counties over 1987 to 2014 using Data Envelopment Analysis method,mainly from the following aspects:In terms of the analysis on the agricultural production of the Loess Plateau during the period of 1987-2014,overall agricultural resources improved.During the study period(1987-2014),gross agricultural product(GAP)grew in the fluctuations and mean annual increasing rate was found to be 13.23%.The number of rural workers increased from 27.2943 million to 40.0038 million,with a mean annual increasing rate of 1.43%.The cultivated area increased from1.15*107 hm2 to 1.22*107 hm2.The total power of agricultural machinery increasedby 189% while the amount of agricultural chemicalfertilizer used increased by 185%.Meanwhile,an analysis was also conducted to evaluate the level of agriculture development for counties over the Loess Plateau between 1987 and 2014.The results showed that there was a relatively rapid improvement on the agricultural development,with the agricultural development scores increasing from-1.279 in 1987 to 1.737 in 2014.The agricultural development of the Loess Plateau was categorized into three levels including high,medium and low level.The counties with high level of agricultural development was mainly located in northern Loess Plateau,and those falling into medium level lied in eastern Loess Plateau.Over one second of the counties experienced a low-level agricultural development,accounting for most areas of the Loess Plateau.UsingData Envelopment Analysis method to measure counties agricultural production efficiency in the Loess Plateau,taking the cultivated area,sown area of grain,rural employees,total power of agricultural machinery,and the amount of agricultural chemical fertilizers as input indexes,gross agricultural output,grain and oil output as output indexes.Results showed that the average value of comprehensive efficiency was 0.694,which was on medium level,and keep a moderate rate of growth,but the regional difference was larger.The coefficient of variation of high vaule(V>0.250)located in some counties in the northern and eastern parts of the Loess Plateau.The variation of pure technical efficiency was divided into three basic types according to the calculation.The number of counties with high value due to pure technical efficiency increased,and there more such kind of countries from the south to the north.Comprehensive efficiency affected by both of pure technical efficiency and scale efficiency,and pure technical efficiency has more contribution to the comprehensive efficiency than the scale efficiency.The scale efficiency value was greater than 0.9 in the entire area with high scale efficiency and the better balance in distribution.