Study On The Influence Of Storage Conditions On The Bargaining Power Of Family Farm

The family farm is the typical representative of new agricultural management body,and its production and operation condition directly relates to the future development direction of our agriculture.Family farms emphasize scale management,but while they benefit from scale management,they also face greater market risks.Large-scale production makes family farms very sensitive to the fluctuations of food prices.Theoretically,large-scale operation can help family farms reasonably control the varieties and quantities they produce,so that they have a certain influence in the agricultural market and are no longer just passive recipients of prices.However,this is not the case in reality.In the actual research process,most family farms believe that they do not have a strong say in food sales,but can only act as the price taker without room for bargaining.The main reason for this phenomenon is that farmers are eager to sell food due to the lack of storage conditions,so they are often "ripped off" by buyers.After grain harvest,farmers who lack storage facilities cannot store a large amount of grain in the long term.In order to avoid losses,they can only choose to sell in the short term.These farmers are often in a weak position when negotiating with grain buyers.On the other hand,farmers with storage facilities can store grain and sell it when the price of grain rises.In this case,farmers have a higher say in negotiations with buyers and are more likely to obtain more benefits.Based on the above background,this paper uses the data of family farms growing rice in Taizhou,Jiangsu Province,to study the impact of storage conditions on the bargaining power of family farms.Firstly,the two-sided stochastic frontier model was used to measure the bargaining power of family farms in the process of grain sales,and the heterogeneity of the bargaining power of farmers was analyzed from five individual characteristics of farmers: age,education level,whether to join cooperatives,whether to take out loans and whether to operate locally.Secondly,the endogenous transformation regression model was used to analyze the effects of storage conditions on the bargaining power of family farms,and the propensity score matching method was used to test robustness.Finally,the paper analyzes the mechanism of storage conditions on the bargaining power of family farms.The main conclusions are as follows:(1)On average,buyers’ bargaining power is more advantageous in grain price formation,while farmers are in a weak position in grain sales market.However,farmers’ bargaining power is highly heterogeneous,and a small number of farmers still have strong bargaining power and can obtain a higher transaction price;(2)The establishment of storage facilities can effectively improve the bargaining power of family farms in the process of grain sales.Meanwhile,the establishment of storage facilities not only has a direct effect on the bargaining power of family farms,but also has two intermediary effects: "Establishment of storage facilities-expansion of planting scale-improvement of bargaining power" and "establishment of storage facilities-increase of sales channels-improvement of bargaining power".Based on the above conclusions,this paper puts forward two policy suggestions:(1)to improve the food circulation market and pay more attention to the difficulties family farms face in the food circulation market;(2)Accelerate the construction of family farm storage facilities.