Study On Cost Efficiency Of China Layer Breeding Industry

After three decades of rapid development,China's laying hens industry has become an industry with relatively high level of industrialization and scale in animal husbandry,which plays an important role in improving residents' dietary pattern,increasing farmers' income,and optimizing the livestock industry structure.However,China's laying hens industry is confronted with several challenges,such as scattered production,wasted resources,and soaring cost of breeding.Therefore,it's necessary to study on the cost efficiency and its influencing factors for the purpose of practical production and academic research.Based on theoretical hypothesis of cost minimization,stochastic frontier cost model was applied to measure cost efficiency of small,middle,large scale of layer breeding samples.Furthermore,non-efficiency of China's laying hens production are explained both with macro environment variables and household characteristics variables.The sample consists of small scale(5 provinces),middle scale(21 provinces),large scale(15 provinces)and Yancheng layer breeding farmers.The research shows that:1.China's laying hens industry has maintained comparatively a high level of cost efficiency as a whole,but non-efficiency also exists.The average cost efficiency of small,medium and large scale sample provinces is 0.842,0.859 and 0.855 respectively.Therefore,at the existing market situation and technology,there are 15.8%,14.1%and 14.5%improvement in the efficiency of various production costs.In the past 11 years,the cost efficiency of the domestic layer breeding industry has shown the trend of two-stage:the efficiency increased from 2004 to 2008 as a whole,however it dropped slightly from 2009 to 2014,and the fluctuation of small-scale cost efficiency is the most obvious.2.When we focus on the factors that cause cost inefficiency:(1)middle and large scale of layer breeding show a higher level of cost efficiency through economies of scale,more efficient feed management and efficient control of labor cost.(2)industry scale has a positive effect on cost efficiency,possibly through the industrial agglomeration and more optimal allocation of elements.(3)the feed-egg ratio has a significant negative effect on the cost efficiency,and the lower conversion rate of the feed will lead to more waste of the feed,thus result in cost efficiency.(4)the cost of disease prevention has a significant negative impact on cost efficiency.On the one hand,the occurrence of the disease will result in an increase in the cost of epidemic prevention.On the other hand,it may lead to an increase in the death loss,thus reducing the cost efficiency.(5)the proportion of agricultural output is negatively related to the cost efficiency.Some agricultural provinces rely too much on the input of feed and labor in the process of layer breeding,which impedes improving of cost efficiency.(6)specialized farmers have higher cost efficiency than non-specialized farmers through moderate scale,automated production.Depending on the results of the study,the author puts forward some suggestions.First,to cultivate specialized and large scale layer breeding farmers.Second,to further encourage provinces with higher cost efficiency to enlarge scale of egg production.Third,to speed up the development of the feed industry.