Farmland Input Behavior Of Rural Households And Its Impact On Farmland Use Efficiency In Yimeng Mountainous Area

With the process of industrialization and urbanization is accelerating,and high-quality cultivated land is continuously developed into construction land.The area of cultivated land is decreasing,while the total demand for grain is continuously increasing.The contradiction between the reduction of cultivated land resources and the increase in grain demand will be more prominent.On this background,improving the farmland use efficiency on the basis of protecting cultivated land resources is particularly important for achieving the sustainable development of agricultural and ensuring food security.As an independent business entity,rural households' agricultural production decision behavior has a direct impact on farmland use efficiency.With the continuous development of the rural economy,the trend of rural household differentiation has become increasingly prominent.Different types of rural households will redistribute the land,capital and labor on the plot scale according to their family characteristics,business objectives and resource endowments,which will affect the farmland use efficiency.Therefore,under the social background of rural household differentiation,exploring the relationship between farmland input behavior of rural households and farmland use efficiency is of great significance for solving the problem of food security and peasants' increase income and achieving the efficient utilization and sustainable development of farmland.The Yimeng mountainous area belongs to one of the earth-rock mountain areas in northern China.The terrain is undulate and the ecosystem is fragile.In addition,the population density is large,and the area of sloping farmland is large.The unreasonable cultivation activities can easily cause nonpoint source pollution and soil erosion,affecting the ecological environment safety of Yimeng mountainous area.In view of this,this paper takes the six typical counties in the Yimeng mountainous area as the sample areas.According to the main methods of rural households' livelihood,the allocation of agricultural and sideline products,the main source of income and its structure,rural households are divided into five types.Firstly,this paper quantitatively analyzes the basic characteristics of different types of rural households in different regions.Secondly,the paper analyzes the characteristics of farmland input behavior of different types of rural households in different regions from three aspects: land,labor and capital.Thirdly,this paper uses data envelopment analysis(DEA)method to measure and compare the farmland use efficiency of the whole study area and different types of rural households.Then,using the Target-MOTAD model to improve the farmland use efficiency of different types of rural households,and the optimal agricultural land use structure and input factor allocation structure were obtained.Finally,the Tobit regression model is used to explore the impact of farmland input behavior of different types of rural households on farmland use efficiency,and propose corresponding policy recommendations.The main conclusions are as follows:(1)The characteristics of rural household differentiation in the study area are obvious.Among the samples of survey,full-time rural households(FTRH in short)have 21.57 percent,part-time rural households I(PTRH I in short)have 14.34 percent,part-time rural households II(PTRH II in short)have 49.37 percent,non-agricultural rural households(NARH in short)have 8.25 percent,deficient rural households(DRH in short)have 6.47 percent.The total number of part-time rural households exceeds 63% of the overall samples,and the phenomenon of part-time employment of rural households is more prominent.There are also obvious differences in the basic characteristics of different types of rural households.The agricultural labors of all types of rural households generally have a low level of education and a serious aging.(2)The differences in farmland input behavior of different types of rural households are mainly reflected in land input,labor input and capital input.Generally speaking,the land input,labor input and capital input of PTRH I are higher than that of FTRH,and FTRH is higher than PTRH II.In the composition of capital input,the yield-increasing input is significantly higher than the labor-saving input.This shows that the proper part-time employment of rural households will promote to increase the effective input of farmland.When the degree of part-time employment exceeds a certain limit,it may lead to a reduction in input.(3)The overall farmland use efficiency of rural households in the study area is generally low,and the scale efficiency is the main constraint factor.The farmland use efficiency of different types of rural households still differs greatly,which the order is PTRH I > FTRH > PTRH II > NARH.This shows that the proper part-time employment of rural households is conducive to the improvement of farmland use efficiency.However,with the gradual deepening of the part-time employment of rural households,the farmland use efficiency presents the change trend of inverted "U".(4)The farmland use structure of rural households and the allocation of labor input and capital input factors have large optimization space in the study area.All types of rural households generally have excessive labor input and insufficient capital inout.Different types of rural households can achieve higher real income by optimizing the farmland use structure and the allocation of input factors,thus achieving the goal of improving the farmland use efficiency.This also reflects the low degree of farmland and the unreasonable allocation of input factors is widely existed in China.(5)The impact direction of different types of rural households' farmland input behavior on the farmland use efficiency is basically the same,but the same factors have different influence degree on different types of rural households.The cultural level of agricultural labor,the scale of farmland,the effective irrigation rate of farmland,the per capita income of rural households and the proportion of agricultural income have a significant positive impact on the farmland use efficiency of FTRH.However,the proportion of agricultural capital input is an important factor that restricts farmland use efficiency of FTRH.The cultural level of agricultural labor,the yield-increasing input per unit area and the proportion of farmland area under soil and water conservation measures have a significant role in promoting the farmland use efficiency of PTRH I,while the labor-saving input per unit area limits the improvement of its farmland use efficiency.The yield-increasing input per unit area,the per capita income of households and the proportion of agricultural income have a significant positive impact on farmland use efficiency in PTRH II,while the proportion of agricultural capital input is the main factor leading to the low farmland use efficiency.The per capita income of rural households and the proportion of agricultural income are beneficial to improving the farmland use efficiency of NARH.However,the number of agricultural labors,the proportion of agricultural capital input and the degree of farmland fragmentation are the main factors leading to the decline of its farmland use efficiency.According to the conclusions of this study,the targeted policy recommendations proposed are as follows: improving the cultural quality of farmers and cultivating the new professional farmers;actively launching institutional innovation and improving the rural social security system;steadily promoting the farmland transfer and encouraging farmers to operate at a moderate scale;improving agricultural infrastructure and increasing the comprehensive production capacity of farmland;optimizing the farmland use structure and developing characteristic agriculture according to local conditions.