淑豪尼克· 哈瑞柯(Nico Heerink) Arie Kuyvenhoven 曲福田
Tan Shuhao1, 3 , Nico Heerink2, Arie Kuyvenhoven3 and Qu Futian1
1) College of Land Management, Nanjing Agricultural University, P.R. China
2) International Food Policy Research Institute, China office, Beijing, P.R. China
3) Wageningen University, Development Economics Group, The Netherlands
Abstract: Rice farming is important for income generation and poverty reduction in large parts of China. With China’sentry into WTO, significant increases in productivity and efficiency are needed to meet the challenges of increased
foreign competition. The high degree of land fragmentation may constitute a major bottleneck to further increasing
productivity and reducing poverty. In this paper we apply detailed household, crop and plot level data to investigate the impact of land fragmentation on rice producers’ technical efficiency in a major rice growing area of Southeast China, using a stochastic frontier model. Empirical results show that the average technical efficiency scores are 0.85 for early rice, 0.83 for late rice, and 0.79 for one-season rice production in our research area. This indicates that with the existing
technologies, a considerable productivity improvement can still be reached by addressing the factors constraining
technical efficiency increases. Land consolidation can be an important option in this respect, as average plots size is found to have a significant positive impact on technical efficiency for all three types of rice.
Key Words: Land fragmentation; Stochastic frontier function; Technical efficiency; Rice production; Southeast China
Tan Shuhao1, 3 , Nico Heerink2, Arie Kuyvenhoven3 and Qu Futian1
1) College of Land Management, Nanjing Agricultural University, P.R. China
2) International Food Policy Research Institute, China office, Beijing, P.R. China
3) Wageningen University, Development Economics Group, The Netherlands
Abstract: Rice farming is important for income generation and poverty reduction in large parts of China. With China’sentry into WTO, significant increases in productivity and efficiency are needed to meet the challenges of increased
foreign competition. The high degree of land fragmentation may constitute a major bottleneck to further increasing
productivity and reducing poverty. In this paper we apply detailed household, crop and plot level data to investigate the impact of land fragmentation on rice producers’ technical efficiency in a major rice growing area of Southeast China, using a stochastic frontier model. Empirical results show that the average technical efficiency scores are 0.85 for early rice, 0.83 for late rice, and 0.79 for one-season rice production in our research area. This indicates that with the existing
technologies, a considerable productivity improvement can still be reached by addressing the factors constraining
technical efficiency increases. Land consolidation can be an important option in this respect, as average plots size is found to have a significant positive impact on technical efficiency for all three types of rice.
Key Words: Land fragmentation; Stochastic frontier function; Technical efficiency; Rice production; Southeast China
