Research On Quality Safety Control Of Vegetable Growers In He County

Since the reform and opening up,China's vegetable industry has achieved rapid development,which provided strong support for the rural economic growth in the main vegetable producing areas.With the continuous improvement of people's live standards,the concept of healthy diet began to spread gradually.As a result,eonsumer's demand for vegetables lay more on quality rather than quantity.Nevertheless,the supply of safety vegetables is in such a short supply that causes the deepening contradiction between the high demand for vegetable products and the low-quality ones in reality.The quality and safety of vegetable production depends mainly on the safety behavior of farmers,which is restricted with its participation in the vertical coordination.Scholars both at home and abroad have done a lot of research on the related problems,most of which gives the explanation from the perspective of asset specificity when it comes to the choice of vertical coordination.On the contrary,what is ignored by most research is that the social networks formed between each member of the same social relations can also reduce transaction costs,thereby affecting farmers in the selection of vertical coordination and,ultimately indirectly affect the safety production behavior of farmers.So,is there a difference in the choice of vertical coordination for farmers with different social capital?Will the quality and safety control behavior of farmer be improved under intervention and restricting agricultural cooperative organizations?This paper,rest on the transaction cost theory,households behavior theory etc,analyses the impact of the level of farmers' personal social capital for its vertical coordination,as well as the impact of vertical coordination for farmers,safety production behavior,both theoretically and empirically.By conducting the field research in He County,Anhui Province,this paper explored how will vegetable growers with heterogeneous social capital make decisions when it comes to take part in the vertical coordination and the difference in corresponding quality control behavior.Based on the statistical analysis and Intervention Effect model,the study found out that:(1)individual social capital is a major factor affecting farmers5 decision in vertical coordination selection.Fanners with lower personal social capital are more inclined to participate in close vertical coordination;(2)In order to ensure a long-term relationship,farmers who participate in the cooperatives or production contracts will improve their quality and safety control level;(3)It helps to improve farmers' quality and safety control level if the government not only enhances the regulation in quality and safety management,but also offers fanners the technical training.According to the conclusions above,this paper proposed the following four policy recommendations:(1)strengthen public education and social supervision of safety production;(2)reinforce quality and safety supervision on vegetable production processes;(3)positively support the development of close vertical coordination;(4)provide safety production support for farmers operating independently.