农户耕地经营适度规模及其绩效研究——基于湖北6县市农户调查的实证分析

Moderate Scale of Farmers’ Cultivated Land Management and Its Performance: An Empirical Analysis Based on Questionnaire Survey of Rural Households in 6 Counties in Hubei Province

定量测度农户耕地经营适度规模及其绩效,对推进农村耕地流转和规模化经营、进而提高农民收入具有重要意义。本文构建了农户耕地经营适度规模的理论模型,并采用湖北省江汉平原和大别山区6个县的327份农户调查问卷进行了实证分析。研究表明:①在农户追求利润最大化的情况下,农户耕地经营存在一个适度规模,此适度规模主要受农业生产技术、农产品市场价格、各投入要素市场价格和农户自家劳力情况的影响;②由于各个地区的自然环境和社会经济发展水平不同,农户耕地经营适度规模存在区域差异,一般而言,平原地区农户耕地经营适度规模高于丘陵山区。目前,无论是平原地区还是丘陵山区,农户耕地经营的现状规模都小于适度规模,耕地经营效益低下;农户要提高家庭收入,就得依赖于耕地流转和劳力流动,或者增加耕地经营规模,或者转出剩余的劳动力;③在耕地经营适度规模下,农户粮食生产利润较现有规模下要高。扩大农户耕地经营规模对提高农户农业生产利润是非常重要的,而且经济较发达的平原地区农户耕地经营规模效益明显高于经济较落后的丘陵山区。

Analyzing moderate scale of farmers’ cultivated land management and its performance is critical to promoting cultivated land circulation, advancing scale management, and improving farmers’ income. The authors built a theoretical model of moderate scale of farmers’ cultivated land management, and performed an empirical analysis of moderate scale of farmers’ cultivated land management and its performance based on a questionnaire survey of 327 rural households of 6 counties in the Jianghan Plain and the Dabie Mountains. Results indicate that： 1） Under the condition of farmers’ agricultural production targets being profit-maximizing, there exists a moderate scale of farmers’ cultivated land management which is mainly affected by agricultural production technology, market price of agricultural products and inputs, and labor forces of rural households; 2） The regional differences of moderate scale of farmers’ cultivated land management exist due to the regional differences of the natural environment and socio-economic development level. Per household moderate scale of cultivated land management was estimated to be 2.838hm2 and 1.896hm2, and per labor force moderate scale of cultivated land management is 1.284hm2 and 0.957hm2 for the Jianghan Plain and the Dabie Mountains, respectively. In general, the moderate scale of farmers’ cultivated land management is larger over plain areas than in hilly and mountainous areas. At present, the existing scale of farmers’ cultivated land management is smaller than the moderate scale regardless of plain areas or hilly and mountainous areas, and the benefit of farmers’ cultivated land management is essentially low. If farmers are intent to increase their family income, they will have to rely on farmland transfer and labor mobility, either increasing the scale of cultivated land management, or exiting the surplus labor force; 3） The profit of food production is higher under the condition of the moderate scale than the existing scale. For example, the grain production profit per household in Jianghan Plain is 17 100 yuan but it is only 8800 yuan in the Dabie Mountain under the condition of the moderate scale. However, the grain production profit per household in Jianghan Plain is 4 900 yuan and it is merely 900 yuan in the Dabie Mountains under the existing scale. Therefore, it is essential to expanding the scale of farmers’ cultivated land management for improving farmers’ agricultural production profits. The scale benefits of farmers’ cultivated land management over plain areas are significantly higher than that in hilly and mountainous areas.