Study On Farmers’ Concurrent Business Behavior And Its Impact On Agricultural Production Efficiency In Hilly And Mountainous Areas Of Western Henan

The household contract responsibility system endows farmers with the status of independent economic subjects.Based on family operation,farmers have created a variety of operating modes in the field of division of labor and separation.Today,farmers’ concurrent operation has become a normal state in rural society,and it is the most common business model for small farmers,forming a relatively stable part-time structure.The cultivated land area in hilly areas accounts for about one-third of the cultivated land area in China,which has a strategic position that cannot be ignored in the process of agricultural and rural development.Therefore,studying the part-time behavior of farmers in hilly and mountainous areas and its influence on agricultural production will help to understand the logic of farmers’ behavior more deeply and is of great significance to guide the development of part-time farmers and promote the process of agricultural modernization.From the perspective of farmers,this paper studies and discusses the present situation,characteristics,influencing factors of farmers’ concurrent business behavior and its impact on local agricultural production efficiency based on the microscopic survey data of twenty-seven villages in three towns in the hilly and mountainous areas of western Henan Province.The main conclusions are as follows:Firstly,the level of farmer-household’s concurrent business in hilly and mountainous areas of western Henan is generally high,and more than half of them are multiple occupations farmers type II.From the characteristics of human capital,the number and age structure of family labor force are important factors to support the diversified management of farmers’ families and give consideration to agricultural production and non-agricultural employment.From the cultivated land utilization mode,the use patterns of pure agricultural households and non-agricultural households are relatively simple,while the use patterns of I-part-time farmers and II-part-time farmers are relatively more diversified.Secondly,the expectation of wage income of farmers’ families,the proportion of young and middle-aged labor force and the satisfaction of primary industry operation all have influences on the concurrent business behavior of farmers in hilly and mountainous areas,and the influencing mechanisms are different.Both wage income expectation and the proportion of young and middle-aged labor force have a positive impact on the decision-making of farmers’ family’s part-time behavior,in which wage income expectation is not only the core influencing factor of farmers’ family’s part-time behavior decision-making,but also part of the intermediary variable of young and middle-aged labor force’s influence on farmers’ part-time behavior: the higher the expectation of wage income and the greater the proportion of young and middle-aged labor force,the more inclined farmers’ families are to seek non-agricultural employment and become part-time farmers,and the degree of their family’s part-time job will deepen accordingly;at the same time,the proportion of young and middle-aged labor force not only has a direct impact on farmers’ part-time behavior,but also plays a role in farmers’ part-time behavior decision-making by affecting the expectation of wage income.In addition,the satisfaction of the primary industry negatively regulates the degree of part-time employment of farmers’ families,but it has no significant effect on whether farmers’ families are more inclined to become part-time farmers.This result proves the universality of part-time employment of farmers’ families in micro-level,which means that no matter what the agricultural operation status is,there will always be different degrees of non-agricultural employment in farmers’ families.Thirdly,farmers’ concurrent business behavior has negative effects on agricultural production efficiency in hilly and mountainous areas.This has been verified from two aspects.On the one hand,the higher the degree of part-time employment of farmers,the lower the agricultural labor productivity and land output rate.On the other hand,the degree of farmers’ part-time job has a negative impact on the comprehensive technical efficiency of agricultural production.Besides,the conclusion also proves that farmers’ concurrent operation does not completely hinder agricultural development,it will promote the pure technical efficiency of agriculture to a certain extent,but at present this is not enough to offset its negative effects.It shows that farmers’ concurrent operation really hinders the agricultural development in hilly and mountainous areas,so how to guide the development of part-time farmers is very important to improve agricultural production efficiency and promote agricultural and rural modernization.On the basis of the above analysis,this paper puts forward corresponding suggestions.First of all,it’s necessary to strengthen non-agricultural skills training to improve the quality of rural surplus labor force and ensure the stability of non-agricultural transfer employment channels for rural labor force,actively explore the market-oriented exit mechanism of rural contracted land,and gradually guide some high-level part-time farmers and non-agricultural households to completely break away from agriculture and rural areas to achieve a real "non-agricultural".Next,it is also necessary to speed up the mechanized transformation of cultivated land and the construction of high-standard farmland in hilly and mountainous areas,actively promote the development of pure agricultural households and low level part-time farmers towards professional farmers and specialization,and develop modern agricultural business entities such as family farms and professional large households based on this type of farmer group;at the same time,it is essential to standardize and guide the construction and development of specialized farmers’ cooperatives,strengthen the support role of cooperatives for farmers,and achieve "effective union of the weak".The last,it is important to constantly improve the agricultural production subsidy policy,adjust the subsidy payment mechanism in time,ensure that agricultural subsidies are concentrated in actual growers,and really play a role in supporting agricultural production and mobilizing farmers’ enthusiasm.