自然禀赋与农地撂荒--基于对农户承包地规模的考察

Initial Natural Endowment and Farmers Land Abandonment Behavior:Based on the Investigation of the Scale of Contracted Land

开放条件下,自然资源对于农户要素配置行为的决定性作用将不断减弱,“资源无谓”的特征则逐渐凸显,由此导致耕地撂荒的加剧。本文从农户承包地规模的角度分析农地撂荒的发生机理,利用2017年中国流动人口动态监测调查数据(CMDS)和2017年江西省农户调研数据进行实证研究,结果表明:(1)平均意义上,承包地面积和农地撂荒之间呈现负向关系,承包地面积越大,农地撂荒的概率相对越低。(2)加入承包地面积的平方项后发现,承包地面积和农地撂荒之间呈现“U”型关系,即随着承包地面积的增大,农地撂荒的概率呈现先下降后上升的特点。(3)进一步分析发现,农户自己耕种的概率和承包地面积呈现“倒U”型关系。在不耕种的农户中,农地流转的概率和承包地面积之间同样呈现“倒U”型关系。(4)机制检验表明,承包地面积和农地撂荒之间的“U”型关系,主要是由开放条件下农业劳动力的刚性约束引起的。因此,小农更可能是进行小规模经营而不是实现农业规模经营的核心主体。

Under the conditions of opening up,the impact of natural resources on farmers behaviordecision and factor allocation continues to weaken,and the characteristics of“resources are insignificant”will gradually become prominent,which leads to the continuous spread of cultivated land abandonment.This paper analyzes the mechanism of farmland abandonment from the perspective of the scale of contracted land.The author used the 2017 China Migrants Dynamic Survey data and 2017 Jiangxi Province Micro-farmer Household data to conduct empirical research.The results show that:Firstly,on average,there is a negative relationship between contracted land area and farmland abandonment.The larger the contracted land area,the lower the probability of farmland abandonment.Secondly,after adding the acreage item of the contracted land,it is found that there is a“U-shaped”relationship between the contracted land area and the abandoned farmland,that is,as the area of the contracted land increases,the probability of abandoned farmland decreases and begins to gradually increase when contracted land reaches a certain level.Thirdly,further research finds that the probability of farmers farming and the area of contracted land shows an inverted“U-shaped”relationship.Among farmers who do not cultivate,there is also an inverted“U-shaped”relationship between the probability of farmland rental and the area of contracted land.Fourthly,the mechanism test shows that the“U-shaped”relationship between contracted land area and farmland abandonment is mainly caused by the rigid constraints of agricultural labor under open conditions.Therefore,small farmers are more likely to carry out small-scale farmland management rather than the main body of agricultural scale management.