Research On Agricultural Science And Technology Extension Service Supply Of Agricultural Materials Dealers

With the function and importance of agricultural science and technology becoming more and more prominent,the agro-technical extension service has become the "last one kilometer" restricting the overall technology level of Chinese agriculture,and it also the key "one kilometer".There are many reasons for the low conversion rate and service level of agricultural science and technology.The agro-technical extension service system is mainly composed of administrative institution and lacks the market agents' participation,and then causes the insufficient incentive and inefficiency in extension,has been one of major reasons.As for the improvement of the agricultural science and technology conversion and service level that further enhance the technology level in agricultural production and the development of modern agriculture,an agro-technical extension service system,which is mainly composed of economic agents and can adapt to the actual demand of production,should be built.However,as the main part of the market agents,the agro-dealers' functions and effects in the agro-technical extension service and the factors affecting their participation are less discussed by scholars and governments.With "agro-dealers + agro-technical service" or "agro-dealers + agro-technical extension" as the key words in the CNKI,almost no article can be found.Just to shorten the gap of the existing researches,this paper take the agro-dealers' participation in agro-technical extension services as the research objective and use the first-hand sample survey data from 4 counties in Northwestern Liaoning Province to investigate the agro-dealers' supply of agro-technical extension services and its determinants.Specifically,there are four major findings in the agro-dealers' agro-technical extension services supply and willingness:(1)Agro-dealers as a supplement,to a certain extent,can offset the function shortage of traditional public agro-technical extension systems.(2)Technical instruction and consultation is the main way for agro-dealers participating in agro-technical extension.And the technical instruction and consultation is mostly based on solving the practical problems of plant protection,pest control and scientific fertilization that farmers face in production.Technology is often obtained from the agro-products enterprises.(3)The ago-technical extension service is becoming an important operating strategy of the agro-dealers and agro-products companies.And the extension services supply of agro-dealers has strong economic benefit driven.(4)Providing technology guidebook and information card are the main type of agro-dealers' extension services.And there are five main findings in the determinants of agro-dealers' participation of agro-technical extension services:(1)there are obvious different relationship between the demographical characteristics of operators,the operation characteristics and environmentalcharacteristics and the actual supply and future willingness of agro-dealers.(2)The agro-dealers that have female,older,higher education level and long-term working experience of operators are more likely to supply agro-technical extension.And the agro-dealers that have younger,less educated and shorter working experience operators have stronger willingness to supply extension services in the future.(3)Large-scale operation,mixed operation and fertilizer-based operation are the common operation characteristics of agro-dealers with agro-technical extension services supply.And the agro-dealers that have mixed operation and non-fertilizer-based operation have higher willingness to supply agro-technical extension services.(4)The fierce industry competition is an important external cause for agro-dealers to provide agro-technical sciences extension services,but it may reduce their future willingness to supply.Although the good relationship with the government would not bring higher participate in extension services,there is a positive relationship with willingness.(5)Economic factors are considered to be the main restriction to agro-dealers' agro-technical extension level.And policy supporting,subsidy and customer demand are helpful to the transit from willingness to actual supply.Based on the above findings,this paper holds that,in the reform of Chinese agro-technical extension service system,the functions of market players such as agro-dealers should be fully utilized,private forces should be absorbed to participate actively in the supply of agro-technical extension services,and an extension system with multi-agents should be established.