The Impact Of Scale Operation On Rice Production In Hubei Province

The implementation of the System of Contracted Responsibility in rural China mobilizes the productive positivity of farmers,and increases the grain yield year by year.However,after the periodic maximum yield was reached in 1984,the national grain production began to fluctuate and the drawbacks of land decentralization began to appear,which seriously affected the construction of agricultural modernization in China.The acceleration of industrialization and urbanization,and the in-depth development of rural market economy intensify the competition between agricultural and non-agricultural production resources.To overcome the contradiction between small-scale peasant household operation and modern large-scale production,the CPC Central Committee guides and encourages farmers to launch various forms of scale operation.Now developing agricultural scale operation is a basic consensus in both theoretical circle and policy-making departments,but is still being explored as a widely applied agricultural operation model in China.This paper bases on the theory of scale economy,the theory of returns to scale and the theory of production relations,takes the scale of rice planting in Hubei province as an example to find out the impact of scale operation on grain production.Firstly,According to the rural fixed observation point data in 2004 and survey data or rice production in Hubei province in 2016,this paper analyzes and explains the various variables in the model through the division of different rice planting scale of the sample farmers,and makes a comparative analysis of the impact of each variable on the basis of the data in2004 and 2016.Secondly,this paper constructs the translog production function model,and uses Eviews to make an empirical analysis of the impacts of scale operation on rice production based on the goal of output level and the return to scale level.The main conclusions and suggestions are as follows:(1)The stable rice planting area in Hubei Province,the propulsion of the scale operation and land circulation and the appearance of new business entities bringopportunities to the large-scale production,intensification and industrialization of modern agriculture,and positively guide the rice production as well.Therefore,the scale operation development policy should be implemented in the basic unit of village and adapted to local conditions;the rural technical service system should be gradually perfected and the agricultural insurance and subsidies should be increased.(2)At present,the rice planting area ranges from 0 to 0.33 hectares,but the empirical result shows that the rice yield per unit area appears to increase first and decrease latter with the expansion of the scale of operation.Under the goal of income,farmers are closer to the "rational economic man" hypothesis.Therefore,moderate scale agriculture should be developed according to the local conditions and new operators like large rice production household and family farms should be cultured.(3)The elasticity of land on rice production is the largest in rice planting,and the calculation of the output elasticity of factor shows that diminishing returns to scale is existed in the sample farmers' rice cultivation.Thus,the land circulation should be strengthened and the economies of scale be implemented intensively.It is notably that the land blocks under the level of output and yield per unit are positively correlated,whereas the correlation is negative under the goal of returns to scale.(4)According to the statistical data of the characteristic variables of farmers,the age of the farmers is concentrated at 40-60 years old,and the older the householder is,the higher the rice output level becomes.The education level of farmers is generally low,but the significant of education level is higher in the model under the goal of returns to scale,which means that benefit-oriented farmers tend to emphasize more on the acknowledgement of agricultural experience and technology so as to constantly gain profits from scale operation.Hence,the cultivation and education of professional farmers should be emphasized,and the modern production elements should be properly used to improve the yield of rice through "one control,two minus,three basic" policy.The innovation of this paper lies in:(1)From the perspective of research content,this paper makes a comparative analysis of the data of sample farmers in 2004 and 2016,and deepens the research by introducing the time dummy variable.Meanwhile,to explore the effect of land fragmentation on scale operation,the land blocks is taken as an explanatory variable.(2)From the perspective of data acquisition,to guarantee the authenticity and completeness of the data,this paper obtains the latest data in 2016 through a field investigation in the rice planting area in Hubei province which makes the conclusion truthful and reliable.