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Special Issue:
农业经济与管理合辑Agricultural Economics and Management
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| The relationship between farm size and fertilizer use efficiency: Evidence from China |
| ZHU Wei1, QI Li-xia2, WANG Rui-mei1 |
1 College of Economics and Management, China Agricultural University, Beijing 100083, P.R.China
2 School of Public Administration, North China University of Water Resources and Electric Power, Zhengzhou 450045, P.R.China
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摘要
中国农业部门普遍存在化肥使用效率低的问题。了解化肥使用的驱动因素对于提高化肥使用效率至关重要。本文的目的是基于中国农场层面的数据研究农场规模与化肥使用效率之间的关系。结果表明：农场规模与化肥使用效率之间存在正相关关系。分别对水稻、玉米、小麦-玉米和水稻-玉米种植户样本进行回归分析得到的农场规模的弹性值很接近，农场规模的平均弹性约为0.2。在统计上，农场规模每增加 1% 将引致化肥使用效率增加 0.2%。农场规模对化肥使用效率的正向影响不是由于产量的增加，而是在保持产量基本不变的情况下减少化肥使用。本研究认为，促进农场规模的扩大可能会提高化肥使用效率，从而减少化肥过度使用造成的环境污染。
Abstract Low fertilizer use efficiency is commonly found in China’s agriculture sector. It is critical to understand the drivers of fertilizer use in order to increase fertilizer use efficiency (FUE). The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between farm size and FUE based on farm-level data in China. The results suggest a positive farm size–FUE relationship. The estimated elasticities of farm size for rice, maize, wheat–maize, and rice–maize are similar, and the average elasticity of farm size is around 0.2. Statistically, a 1% increase in farm size is associated with a 0.2% increase in FUE. The positive effect of farm size on FUE is not due to the increase in yield, but the reduction in fertilizer use while keeping yield largely unchanged. The findings suggest that promoting the expansion of farm size may increase FUE, and thus reduce environmental pollution caused by fertilizer overuse.
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Received: 13 November 2020
Accepted: 08 May 2021
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| Fund: This work was supported by the National Social Science Fund of China (16AJY013). |
| About author: ZHU Wei, E-mail: zhuwei365@126.com; Correspondence WANG Rui-mei, E-mail: wangruimei@cau.edu.cn |
Cite this article:
ZHU Wei, QI Li-xia, WANG Rui-mei.
2022.
The relationship between farm size and fertilizer use efficiency: Evidence from China. Journal of Integrative Agriculture, 21(1): 273-281.
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