The Effects Of Non Farm Wages On Agricultural Cropping Structure:Theoretical And Empirical

Since 1978,China's total scales of planting crops have been keeping a sustainable growth,but the total scales of grain crops have been obviously decreased and then increased,especially since 2004,the proportion of grain has increased significantly.At the same time,with the booming development of China's economy,the scale of the secondary and tertiary industries has expanded rapidly since 2004;a large number of labors have transferred from agriculture to industry or service sector,and the labor wages has raised rapidly.As an indispensable input factor,the labor force plays an extremely important role in agricultural production.The shortage of agricultural labor and the rise of labors' opportunity cost will have a profound impact on China's agricultural development.Under the background of the rapid rise of the opportunity cost of agricultural labor force and the large outflow of agricultural labor force,studies on the changes of farmers' planting structure adjustment,are of great significance to clarify whether the rise of non-farm employment wage will threaten the development of agriculture in our country or endanger the food security of our country.Although the non-farm wages have risen rapidly,there is a lack of researches on the changes of agricultural planting structure in China from the perspective of non-farm wages.This paper focuses on the analysis of the impact of non-farm wages on the planting structure of farmers by constructing the theoretical model.The results of the model show that when farmers face non-agricultural wages,family labor endowment and land endowment for production will be redistributed.Considering the land and labor have some substitution effect,and the output elasticity of labor intensive labor intensive crops is higher than land,the labor intensive crops affected by the price of labor will be more obvious,farmers may reduce the land and labor investment in labor intensive crops,and increase land intensive crop inputs.This paper uses the data from the national fixed observatories of the Ministry of Agriculture,including 24 provinces from 2004 to 2011 and the data are from 319 counties which include 17239 households for 8 unbalanced panel.This study used unbalanced panel fixed effect model,random effect model and mixed OLS estimation model to analyze the impact of rising non-agricultural wages on land intensive crop planting proportion.On the basis of general analysis,this study will expand further from three aspects:the effects of different ways of setting land intensive crops difference,the analysis of the effects of different initial endowment of land farmer' s difference and the analysis of the effects of different terrain difference.The main results of this paper are as follows:(1)when the other conditions remain unchanged,the increase of the non-farm employment wage leads the farmers' planting structure to the increase the proportion of grain crops(land-intensive crops),and to reduce the proportion of economic crops.(2)The research results of different land intensive crops are consistent.The results show that the proportion of land intensive crops(I and II)increases with the increase of non-farm wages.(3)The rise of non-farm employment wage is consistent with the direction of the adjustment of planting structure,which is different from the initial scale of farmers,and the internal adjustment of land intensive crops is different.Small scale farmers' planting structure adjustment is to the main grain crops.Large scale farmers pay more attention to the diversification of food crops;the planting structure is not only to adjust the main grain crops,but also to potato and other food crops.(4)For the different terrain ranges,non-agricultural employment wages' impact on farmers' planting structure adjustment degree are different.In general,compared with the plain area,hilly and mountain areas will hinder the planting structure of land intensive crops to the extent of deflection.According to the above research conclusions,this paper suggests that the government can adjust the national grain production through market forces,which can reduce the financial pressure.Considering the difference of the grain production potential of the farmers with different initial land endowments,the government should pay attention to building an appropriate scale of agricultural management system and a systematic land leasing market through the specific grain security issues.Considering there are terrain and technical obstacles in some areas,the government can support the development of agricultural mechanization and construct a perfect agricultural machinery service market.