Apple Growers' Demand For Technology Service

Agricultural technology service which acts as the bridge and link of converting scientific and technological achievements into real productive forces links supply and farmers' demand of technology,its basic function is to reduce the time lag between technology research and application and improve the rate of adoption of technology by farmers.Shaanxi,Gansu and Shandong provinces are the major apple production areas in China,whose total planting area and yield of apple are more than half of the whole country in 2015.Moreover,apple industry is the local pillar industry.Since 2010,the tendency is that the apple planting area is expanding and the yield growth still continuing in China.However,because of the lag of structural reformation of agricultural supply side,the costs of apple production rise fairly,the market price fluctuates sharply,and the problem caused by imbalance of supply and demand becomes obvious.One of the main reasons is that the progress of apple production technology is relatively slow,technical equipment is backward,transformation and upgrading of apple industry lag behind,and quality and efficiency of the apple supply side cannot meet effective demand.Therefore,based on the theories of induced technological innovation and theories of farmer's behavior about technology,it is greatly theoretically and practically significant to take field survey data from 967 apple growers in Shaanxi,Gansu and Shandong provinces of China as an example to analyze apple growers' demand for agricultural technology service,evaluate effectiveness of agricultural technology service supply,and explore innovation mechanism between technology supply and demand.This paper analyzes the priority order of apple growers' demand for technology service projects,their willingness of payment for technology service,and their demand for technology service approach by combining the first-decision method,weighted-frequency method and system-clustering method.It also analyzes the factors that affecting apple growers' demand for technology service through the binary logistic regression model.The specific chapter arrangement of this paper is divided into six parts.The first chapter is the introduction,making a detailed description of the background of this topic,the relevant literature review and evaluation,and research ideas,research methods,and possible innovation.The second chapter includes the specification and definition of the core concepts involved in the article,analyzing the technical service demand of apple growers based on the induced technology innovation and farmer's behavior theory.The third chapter is the illustration about data sources and the characteristics of sample regions referred to the apple production situation and the status of agricultural technology services.The fourth chapter analyzes the situation of apple growers' demand for technology service,including statistical analysis of the priority order of demand of technology service,the demand of service approach and the willingness to pay for technology service.The fifth chapter makes a hypothesis through deducing the effect of factors to the demand of technology service by using theoretical analysis and carrying on the empirical test.It includes the classification and description of the variables,the research hypothesis,and the setting and analysis of model.The sixth chapter is the main conclusions and related suggestions of this paper.The main conclusions of this paper are as follows: firstly,the priority of apple growers' demand for technology service projects is divided into three levels.The first layer which is from strong to weak sequence includes shaping and trimming technology,soil and fertilizer management,and pest control technology.The second layer includes only disaster prevention and control measures.The strong-to-weak sequence in the third layer is old garden transformation,variety or nursery stock,agricultural machinery technology in orchard,management technology of flower and fruit,harvesting and storage technology of fruit.Secondly,apple growers want to acquire more direct technology service approaches,such as on-site training and field guidance,but apple growers who choose one-on-one household guide account for only 39.05%.Apple growers are concerned about not only status of their own production technology but also the situation around other farmers,and pay attention to agricultural technology communication and discussion.Thirdly,the proportions of apple growers who are willing to pay separately for shaping and trimming,soil and water management,and pest control services are 60.19%,64.74% and 75.08% in which most apple growers are willing to pay 200 yuan or above for each technology service project.Finally,factors including age,education and attitude to risk of decision-maker,proportion of apple income,family labor force,technology level and satisfaction of technology service have significantly negative effect on apple growers' demand of technology service.But other factors including gender of decision-maker,outsourcing in production,whether to join the cooperatives,whether to participate in technical training,awareness of technical importance,and whether to have technical problems in production have a significantly positive impact on apple growers' demand of technology service.On the basis of the conclusions above,this paper focus on the innovation mechanism of combination of agricultural technology and apple growers' demand for technology.It puts forward five-point solutions and suggestions on establishing mechanism of technical service feedback between supply and demand,strengthening critical technology research,enforcing prevention and control of catastrophic weather and spreading the use of apple insurance,improving the function of technology service in professional apple grower cooperatives,and adopting flexible modes on agricultural technology services.