农机服务对小农户土地流转“内卷化”的影响

The Effect of Agricultural Machinery Services on the “Involution” of Smallholders’ Land Rental

农机服务的快速发展能否解释农地流转并未推动我国农业适度规模经营趋势而出现的“内卷化”现象,仍有待分析与验证。采用中国农村家庭大数据库(CRHPS)中的小农户样本,分析小农户在土地流转市场中的处境并运用三阶段最小二乘法和中介效应模型实证检验农机服务对其土地流转决策的影响。结果表明,小农户采用农机服务显著地降低了土地转出并增加了土地转入,并验证了包括农业劳动力投入、农业技术应用和农业收入在内的三个主要影响机制。研究论证了农机服务能够在一定程度上解释我国土地流转中参与率增速放缓、小规模转入与部分转出对应的小农户复制以及农地流转对农业生产率作用递减的“内卷化”现象。提出在制定完善农机服务政策时,既要满足小规模农户的生产需求以维持家庭生计,又要衔接土地转入户的服务需求以推动土地适度规模经营。

It remains to be analyzed and verified whether agricultural machinery services(AMS) can explain the“involution”phenomenon that agricultural land transfer does not promote the trend of moderate agricultural scale operation in China.Based on a sample of smallholders from the China Rural Household Panel Survey(CRHPS),this paper analyzes the situation of smallholders in the land rental market and the effect of adoption of AMS on their land rental decisions and conducts an empirical test using a three-stage least squares model(3SLS)and mediating effects model.The estimation results showed that smallholders’ adoption of AMS significantly reduced the likelihood of participation in the land rental out and increased the likelihood of participation in the land rental in,where AMS acted indirectly on smallholders’ land transfer decisions through their effects on agricultural labor inputs,agricultural technology applications,and farm income.The study demonstrates that agricultural machinery services can,to a certain extent,explain the slowdown of the rental rate of smallholders in land transfer,the replication of smallholders in which small-scale land was rented in and part of their land was rented out,and the“involution”phenomenon of the decreasing effect of agricultural land transfer on agricultural productivity in China.It is suggested that when formulating policies concerning AMS,agricultural policy makers should objectively pay attention to the phenomenon of“involution”of the land rental market brought about by the development of AMS and meet the production needs of small-scale farmers to maintain household livelihoods and the service needs of land transfer households to promote moderate scale land management.