Factor Price And Technical Efficiency Of Grain Production

In 2015,food production in China achieved the goal of “12 consecutive increases”.However,the problem of future food security is still serious based on the following considerations: on the one hand,due to the influence of population growth and diversification of demand,the demand for grain will increase considerably in the future.On the other hand,the rising price of food input factors promotes the rapid rise of total cost of grain production.In the case of low comparative returns,farmers are less motivated to grow grain,which results in the non-agriculturalization and non-grain-production of cultivated land.According to the prediction of lv xinye in2012,the demand of wheat,which is one of the three major grain crops in China,will reach 120 million tons in 2020 accounting for 14% of the total grain demand.Therefore,it is particularly important to maintain the stable and continuous growth of wheat output.As we all known,the increase of wheat yield must depend on the increase of yield per unit area,which can be increased effectively by improving technical efficiency.In view of above observations and under the background of the rising cost of wheat planting promoted by the price of factors of production,this paper focuses on how to improving the efficiency of wheat technology.To be more specific,the impact of price changes of wheat production factors on the efficiency of wheat production technology is researched in this paper.It should be pointed out that such research has been involved in other fields including industry,transportation,and this paper introduces such research train of thought in the field of agriculture aiming at exploring the connection between the two factors of wheat production,which can provide a scientific basis for perfecting the price mechanism of agricultural production factors and improving the comprehensive production capacity of wheat.Based on cross-section data of 15 major wheat producing provinces from2004-2016,the DEA-BCC model and the super efficiency-SBM model are established from the perspective of wheat yield.Then,by measuring and analyzing the wheat production technical efficiency within major wheat producing areas of 15 provinces from 2004 to 2016 synthetically,and adopting the measured efficiency of wheat production technology as an explanatory variable,Tobit model is built,which aims at analyzing the impact of price changes of wheat's main input factors on the efficiency of wheat production technology.After calculations,the following results can be obtained: it is estimated that the current average technical efficiency of the 15 major wheat producing provinces is 0.8792.There is still room for the optimization ofpure technical efficiency and scale efficiency.It is necessary to improve management level,optimize resource allocation and improve production scale.It can be derived from Tobit regression that labor price,fertilizer price and mechanical leasing price increase have positive effects on wheat production technology efficiency.Moreover,labor price and land price increase have a negative impact on wheat production technology efficiency.It can be seen from the results of empirical analysis that the price rise of different factors of production has different effects on technical efficiency.Therefore,it is necessary to further improve the market-oriented formation mechanism of factor prices in order to play its role as a price signal well and guide farmers to improve factor allocation accordingly.For example,guide farmer to increase investment if fine seeds,apply fertilizer rationally and adjust the proportion between fertilizer and organic fertilizer,which can improve the efficiency of fertilizer application.In addition,the government should take the following measurements.Constantly improve infrastructure construction,such as water conservancy facilities,monitoring and prevention of major natural disasters,etc.;Encourage and support the development of non-agricultural industries,and transfer the redundant labor force in agricultural production to non-agricultural industries;Drive out and eliminate some inferior seeds,further increase investment in science and technology research and development,and promote the coverage of improved seed;Further improve the registration system for land contracting and management rights and the security system for rural society.