土地流转：弱转入土地意愿的博弈分析

[目的]我国土地制度的施行使得农户拥有较多小块土地,家庭农场实现连片规模经营的前提是获得规模连片土地,家庭农场与农户进行土地流转协商时,农户将土地流转给家庭农场的意愿如何值得探讨。因此本文研究目的是对家庭农场实现规模连片生产提出建议,期望家庭农场实现规模化经营。[方法]博弈分析法。[结果]家庭农场存在从农户手中转入土地困难,转入土地意愿不强的现象,家庭农场弱转入土地意愿的根源在于土地租金过低、农户转出土地净利润过低、实际转入土地意愿过低。[结论]由此文章提出了3点建议:(1)尝试"确权不确地,确地不确人"的确权政策(2)创建农村土地经营权流转信息平台,建立农村土地流转交易所(3)工商资本下乡租田的做法需谨慎。     

Does the Decoupling Reform Affect Agricultural Employment in Sweden? Evidence from an Exogenous Change

This study uses aggregated municipality data, for the years 2001–2009, to explore whether direct payments to farmers affect agricultural employment in Swedish municipalities. The decoupling reform in 2005 included a new grassland support payment accompanied by management obligations that had unexpectedly high redistributive consequences as it greatly increased common agricultural policy payments to municipalities with large areas of grassland. In some municipalities, total payments more than doubled. Thus, since the reform seems exogenous to the behaviour of farmers and the regional economy, the reform can be used to identify a subsidy effect. We find that a permanent increase in agricultural employment can be attributed to the new grassland support. Our results indicate that the grassland support generates an additional job at a cost of SEK 250,000, relative to the average agricultural wage of SEK 333,000. However, the subsidy effect is largely keeping jobs in agriculture, i.e. the grassland support may be slowing down the process of structural change in grassland regions.     

Fostering rural and agricultural tourism: exploring the potential of geocaching

Geocaching is a modern-day version of “hide and seek” where participants use geographical longitude and latitude coordinates to locate a “geocache” using a GPS device or mobile app. An agriculturally focused geocache program could foster tourism, interest and educational opportunities about rural and agricultural areas, and could facilitate additional patronage of businesses that operate in these areas. As a prerequisite to such a program, however, organizations must commit to establishing and maintaining a geocache. This study explores the perceived benefits and constraints to an organization's participation in a rural or agriculturally focused geocache program. A case example of an agriculturally focused geocaching program, AgCache, is used as a starting point. In-depth interviews of program Founders and current participants explored the program's background and goals, and experiences of participating sites. Complimenting this, a survey collected information from potential host sites, and probit model analyses were used to assess influences on an organization's interest in hosting a geocache. While many organizations indicated that they would be interested in such a program, several indicated (addressable) concerns. Characteristics of the organization and respondent were found to significantly influence their interest. Findings are instructive for targeting and recruiting organizations into an agricultural or rural geocaching program.     

An evaluation framework for the sustainable operation of leisure farms

The Taiwanese government’s promotion of domestic travel has generated high demand for leisure farming, resulting in the increasing establishment of leisure farms and an intensification of competition. A key concern for farm operators is how to operate and develop farms according to the principles of sustainability. Through a literature review, in-depth interviews and a modified Delphi technique, this study developed an evaluation framework for the sustainable operation of leisure farms. From the study results, we derived 39 indicators encompassing the five dimensions, namely social sustainability, economic sustainability, environmental sustainability, resource sustainability and management sustainability. The implications of these findings for managing leisure farms and future research directions are discussed.     

Chinese land policies and farmers’ adoption of organic fertilizer for saline soils

Soil salinization has become a global concern and poses a great threat to food production and sustainable land use. Land use policies are the main driver of saline soil farmland use in ecosystems. This paper proposes a theoretical framework for analyzing how saline soil farmland use is affected by land use practices of individual farm households. An empirical study, using an ordered probit model, was conducted based on questionnaire responses from farm households in 8 towns and 14 villages in eco-fragile areas in Shandong, Jilin and Xinjiang provinces. The results suggest that land tenure, state systems agricultural support, characteristics of a field parcel and characteristics of the farm households have different influences on farmer's land use in three regions. The adoption of organic fertilizer by individual households is constrained by the lack of stability and integrity in land tenure. Furthermore, the parcel of a field is generally small, sparsely distributed and often fragmented, which increases costs. Even subsidizing organic fertilizer does not necessarily help in its adoption. Given these challenges, this study makes recommendations for different regions that may promote the adoption of improved saline soil farmland cultivation methods by farmers.     

对广东农垦完善职业教育集团运作模式的思考

广东农垦作为农业部直属垦区,目前正处在改革发展的关键时期,大力发展职业教育是全面深化改革的重要保障.在分析国内外各类职教集团运作机制的基础上,探讨进一步完善职业教育集团的运作模式和机制建设,加强职业教育集团作用,以充分利用垦区职教资源优势,更好地为农垦改革发展服务.     

Incorporating risk in a positive mathematical programming framework: a dual approach

In this study we develop a new methodological proposal to incorporate risk into a farm‐level positive mathematical programming (PMP) model. We estimate simultaneously the farm nonlinear cost function and a farmer‐specific coefficient of absolute risk aversion as well as the resource shadow prices. The model is applied to a sample of representative arable crop farms from the Emilia‐Romagna region in Italy. The estimation results confirm the calibration ability of the model and reveal the values of the individual risk aversion coefficients. We use the model to simulate different scenarios of crop price volatility, in order to explore the potential risk management role of an agri‐environmental scheme.     

Measuring the effects of preservation on farm profits in a continuous treatment setting

Despite billions of dollars of public appropriations to state purchase of development rights (PDR) programmes, there has been limited evaluation of the effects of these investments on the economic performance of preserved farms. This article estimates dose-response functions to evaluate the effects of enrolment in New Jersey’s PDR programme on farm profitability. The generalized propensity score method in a continuous treatment setting is used to address selection bias arising from voluntary programme participation. Treatment effects are measured across treatment levels to determine whether farm profitability is affected differently across levels of programme participation. Our findings reveal that, relative to unpreserved farms, profit per acre tends to increase along lower treatment levels. The profit per acre of preserved farms in the 1–40% treatment range is, on average, $407 higher than that of unpreserved farms in the full sample. Positive profit differentials averaging between $317 and $472 per acre are also observed in the 1–20%, 1–40% and 1–60% treatment quintiles in the farming occupation sample. We do not observe statistically significant profitability differentials when treatment effects are averaged across all positive treatment values.     

How training and innovation link to farm performance: a structural equation analysis

The complexity of modern farm management places great demands on the skill, knowledge and capability of farm managers and their families. Keeping abreast of emerging technologies and innovations that can affect each key farm enterprise, and knowing how best to marshal the resources required for profitable farm production, are key tasks of farm management. This study draws on a longitudinal data set of 240 broadacre farmers to compare and analyse their farm performance over a decade. Using structural equation modelling, we examine relationships between the farm family's involvement in training, their human capital, their use of various innovations and ultimately the linkages of these factors to farm financial and productivity performance. Several statistically significant inter‐relationships are found, and some factors are shown to have significant positive links to farm performance. We find that training undertaken by the farm family, the farm family's human capital and their use of innovations, particularly key cropping innovations, have significant beneficial impacts on farm performance. The farmer's skills in time and organisational management, their engagement in business planning and the unique environmental characteristics of the farm also significantly and positively influence farm performance.