| With the rapid development of the non-farm sector,some farmers are engaged in both farming and non-farm activities,and the degree of part-time farming continues to increase.Excessive part-time work by farm households may lead to the sidelineisation of agricultural production and business activities,affecting agricultural production efficiency and even agricultural safety.To this end,in 2019,the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs,the Central Agricultural Office and 11 other departments jointly issued the "Guidance on the Implementation of the Family Farm Cultivation Programme",emphasising the need to address issues such as the part-timeisation of farmers and accelerate the construction of a new agricultural business system,explicitly requiring that "we should take the path of modernising Chinese agriculture,cultivate professional farmers,transform the identity of part-time farmers and enhance the specialisation of farmers ".As a high-value cash crop,apple farmers need to specialise in production,but the phenomenon of part-time farming still exists,and its part-time operation can divide the labour force and lead to insufficient human capital investment,land wastage and sloppy operation,which to a certain extent affects farmers’ factor input and technical efficiency.The aim of this paper is to analyse the current situation of apple farmers’ part-time employment in the study area and to verify the impact of apple farmers’ part-time employment on factor inputs and technical efficiency through a descriptive analysis,so as to provide reference for the construction of a new agricultural management system.Based on the theoretical analysis of the impact of apple households’ part-time employment on production factor inputs based on field research data from nine counties(cities and districts)in Shandong and Shaanxi provinces,the article uses IV-Probit,IV-Tobit and2 SLS to empirically demonstrate the impact of the degree of part-time employment on labour input,land input and capital input respectively.Finally,a Tobit model was used to test the effect of the degree of part-time employment on the technical efficiency of apple farmers by constructing a transcendental logit production function for apple households.After systematically examining the effects of degree of part-time employment and type of part-time employment on factor inputs and technical efficiency of apple growers,the following conclusions were drawn:(1)The farming households were classified into types based on the ratio of agricultural(fruit)income to total household income,and it was found that the 1082 apple growers interviewed were only two types of households: pure farmers and Type I part-time households,with pure farmers accounting for 63.86% of the overall sample and Type I part-time households accounting for 36.14%.The analysis of the planting scale data showed that the per capita area of apple planted by Class I part-time households was 57.00% smaller than that of pure farmers;the average labour input per mu of Class I part-time households was 186.00%less than that of pure farmers,and the inputs of self-employed and hired labour of pure farmers were 84.08% and 190.19% higher than that of part-time households respectively;the average capital input per mu of Class I part-time households was 104.33% less than that of pure farmers;the fruit industry The analysis of the income data showed that the per capita fruit income of pure farmers was 349.23% more than that of Class I part-time households.The results of the descriptive analysis of the data show that the scale of inputs of land,capital and labour of parttime households is smaller than that of pure farmers.(2)Using econometric methods to analyze the impact of the degree of part-time employment on factor inputs,the results showed that: using the IV-Probit model to test the impact of the degree of part-time employment on land inputs,the degree of part-time employment was positively correlated with farmers’ land transfer at the 1% level of significance,and after replacing the explanatory variables and using the area of apple plantation in the same year as the variable characterizing land inputs,it was found that the degree of part-time employment was negatively correlated with the area of apple plantation.The effect on labour input was tested using the IV-Tobit model or by adjusting the explanatory variable to the degree of part-time employment II,and the degree of part-time employment was found to be negatively related to farm labour input at the 1% level of significance.The effect of part-time employment on capital factor inputs was found to be negatively correlated with capital factor inputs at the 1% level of significance.The above results indicate that the higher the degree of part-time employment,the greater the probability of farmers switching out of their land and reducing the scale of their production operations.The higher the degree of part-time farming,the lower the input of agricultural labour and capital factors.(3)The SFA was used to construct a production function for apple households to derive the technical efficiency values of farming households,and then the Tobit model was used to analyse the effect of part-time employment of apple farmers on technical efficiency.The mean value of technical efficiency of pure farmers was 11.90% higher than that of part-time farmers in category I.It was found that part-time farming had a suppressive effect on the technical efficiency of farmers,i.e.the higher the degree of part-time farming,the lower the technical efficiency of apple farmers.The mean value of technical efficiency of pure farmers was 11.90%higher than the mean value of technical efficiency of part-time farmers in category I.This shows that part-time farming cannot improve technical efficiency by rationalizing factor allocation,refining farming or alleviating financial difficulties,but rather,part-time farming makes farmers lose labour input and reduce capital factor input,which leads to a decrease in technical efficiency.(4)The theoretical and empirical analyses show that part-time work inhibits the factor inputs of farmers and reduces their technical efficiency.The phenomenon of part-time employment has increased the tension in the rural labour market and has not improved with the income effect of part-time employment.Firstly,from the perspectives of production costs and market environment,we should help farmers to reduce agricultural production costs,reduce agricultural production risks and improve agricultural income,so as to realise a lowcost and high-output production model;secondly,from the perspectives of rationalising factor allocation and attaching importance to human capital,we should improve the land transfer mechanism and promote the formation of social service organisations for idle rural labour,so as to provide a stable supply of apple production for farmers engaged in agricultural production.Secondly,from the perspective of rationalising the allocation of factors and attaching importance to human capital,we should improve the land transfer mechanism,promote the formation of social service organisations for idle rural labour,and provide training on apple production techniques to farmers who are steadily engaged in agricultural production,so as to realise intensive and efficient specialised production. |
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