Study On The Influence Of Off-farm Employment On Farmers' Forestry Investment

Forestry is playing an indispensable role in the ecological environment and economic development.In order to promote forestry development,since the reform of the collective forest tenure system in 2003,farmers become the main body of forestry management.Their forestry management investment behavior has aroused more extensive concern in the practice and the academic community.In order to further enhance the enthusiasm of farmers to operate forestry,the relevant government departments carried out the corresponding supporting reform.These reform aims to provide a more relaxed policy environment for forestry production and to achieve the aim of "resource growth" and "farmers' income improvement".However,with the continuous development of labor market and the increasingly close link between urban and rural economic development,the transfer of rural labor force to off-arm industry has become a common phenomenon.Nearly 20 years,a large number of rural young and middle-aged workers have been transferred out from the traditional production areas of agriculture and forestry,and participated in off-farm employment activities.With the large number of labor transfer,the number of off-farm laborers in 2009 accounted for more than 60% of the total labor force.It can be seen that the impact of non-farm employment on farmer management is worthy of attention.Therefore,to explore issues like the impact of off-farm employment on forestry development,the impact of collective forest right reform on forestry development and their impact on forestry development have a very important practical and theoretical significance.The article is written using the panel data collected from 1388 households in 18 counties from Shandong,Liaoning,Henan,Sichuan,Zhejiang,Fujian,Hunan,Jiangxi and Guangxi provinces covering the period of 2009-2013.Based on the institutional change theory,the farmers' behavior theory and property right theory,the artical systematically analyzed the current situation of farmers' management and investment in the sample area,and the situation of off-farm employment.Using the random effects model to analyze the factors affecting farmers' forestry investment from the five aspects: policy variables,head of household characteristics,operating environment characteristics,forest features and regional dummy variables.Then found a significant impact on the migrant workers index.As the migrant workers index is a indicator related to the geographical distance and the duration of off-farm employment,the paper analyzes the impact of non-farm employment on farmers' investment in forestry.Based on the above analysis,the conclusions of this study are:The farther the off-farm employment's geographic distance and the higher the index of the migrant workers,the greater the negative impact on the forestry investment of a family.Whether there are off-farm employment members in the family have a significant positive impact on their forestry investment.The absolute price of off-farm employment(county)has a significant positive effect on the forestry investment of farmers,the higher the price,the more the households' forestry investment.While the proportion of off-farm income and off-farm labor input will have a significant negative impact on the total investment in forestry.Among the factors in the collective forest reform and the supporting reform,whether the main reform of the forest reform is completed,whether to obtain a forest right loan or not have a significant role in promoting the enthusiasm of farmers.Participation in forest land inflow has a positive impact on forestry inputs,while the impact of forest insurance is not significant.In addition,the forestland area,the main forest species,the road conditions and whether the terrain is mountainous have a significant impact on the farmers' forestry investment.Where the village to the county the more the distance,the more forestry investment.Therefore,the corresponding policy recommendations are as following: the first is to make full use of local forest resources to promote the local off-farm employment,the second is to promote the flow of forest land to reduce the phenomenon of extensive forestry operations,the third is to improve the forestry management environment,the fourth is to continue to improve the forest security loans and other supporting reform measures.