The Influence of Agricultural Mechanization on the Development of Agricultural Economy in Chongqing City

Changsheng QIU

Department of Business and Trade，Southwest University Rongchang Campus，Chongqing 402460，China

1 Introduction

Technology not only penetrates into production process as a factor of production，but also has great influence on all aspects of social life.It becomes an important symbol of human civilization［1］.Contemporary China's rural economy will inevitably develop towardsmodernization，industrialization and specialization，and agriculture is increasingly big on intensive development.The corresponding adjustment of the agricultural structure is gradually linked to saving-oriented and efficient agricultural construction which is based on science and technology and agriculturalmachinery.Through the development of industrialization and mechanization，it can effectively improve agricultural productivity and promote the rapid development of scale agricultural land operation，rural economy and improvement of farmers'living standards，so it is inevitably inseparable from the development and promotion of modern agriculturalmechanization technology.Based on the data of rural economic development since the establishment of Chongqing Municipality，this paper uses econometrics and agricultural engineering to analyze and study the influence of agricultural mechanization on the development of agricultural economy from a quantitative point of view.

2 Literature review

The economic growth issues have attracted close attention since 1776，while themodern theory of economic growth is the first significant progress based on the Solow growth model developed in 1956.In themid-1980s，started by the works of Romer（1986）and Lucas（1988），the research on issues of economic growth once again achievedmajor progressand development.The study of the impact of agriculturalmechanization on rural economic development ismainly reflected in three aspects.（i）The contribution of agriculturalmechanization to rural economic growth is not directly studied，but there are studies on the contribution of scientific and technological progress to economic growth from amacro perspective.The C-D production function，developed by the Americanmathematician Cobb and economist Douglas in 1927，and Solow growthmodel in 1956，are the typical cases.At home，there are alsomany research results，such as the classic by Lin Yifu Institution，Technology and Agricultural Development in China［2］and AReview of Institution，Technology and Agricultural Development in China［3］，thework by Jiang Heping etal.（2001）Measurementand Analysison Contribution Rateof the National Agricultural Technology Progressduring 1995-1999［4］，thework by Zhu Xigang Agricultural Technology Progress and Estimation on Its Contribution during the Seventh Five-Year Plan Period［5］，and the work by Li Xingguo et al.Research and Application of Calculation Method for Technology Progress Contribution Rate［6］.（ii）The calculation methods for the contribution of agriculturalmechanization to agricultural production are analyzed and compared.In Study on the Calculation Method for the Contribution of AgriculturalMechanization to Agriculture，Yang Bangjie et al.（2000）compare the Cobb-Douglass production function model method and"with or without comparisonmethod"in terms of calculation steps andmodels［7］.（iii）From empiricalaspect，a calculationmethod is used to analyze and explore the influence of agriculturalmechanization on agricultural output，farmers'income increase or farming development.Feng Haifa uses composite index tomeasure the total factor productivity of agriculture in China［8］.Study on China's Comprehensive Agricultural Production Capacity edited by the Research Office of the State Council uses data envelopment analysis tomeasure the contribution of factor inputs to farming output value and employs C-D production function to estimate the contribution of factor inputs to animalhusbandry and fishery output value［9］.

3 Overview of rural econom ic development in Chongqing City

Since Chongqing became amunicipality under the central government in 1997，there has been rapid social and economic development，and GDP was higher than the national average，increasing from 136.024 billion yuan in 1997 to 652.872 billion yuan in 2009，an annualaverage growth rate ofover20%.The rural living standards have been greatly improved，and the per capita net income increased from 1638.2 yuan in 1997 to 3907.16 yuan in 2008.The rural economic aggregate also continued to grow，and the output value of farming，forestry，animal husbandry and fishery increased from 43.935 billion yuan in 1997 to 87.139 billion yuan in 2008.Farming output value increased from 26.789 billion yuan in 1997 to 46.547 billion yuan in 2008，an average annual increase of 6.15%；forestry output value increased from 1.173 billion yuan in 1997 to2.934 billion yuan in 2008，an average annual increase of5.41%；animal husbandry output value increased from 14.689 billion yuan in 1997 to34.415 billion yuan in 2008，2.3 times that in 1997；fishery output value increased from 1.284 billion yuan in 1997 to2.115 billion yuan in 2008，an average annual increase of 5.39%.The remarkable rural economic development in Chongqing City can notbe separated from the significantly improved rural and agricultural production conditions，as well as the greatly improved agriculturalmechanization inputs（Table1）.It is noteworthy that the total power of agriculturalmachinery，agricultural irrigation and drainage machinery，agricultural pumps，number of farm vehiclesand total agricultural output value show an increasing trend，but the use of agricultural tractors does not gradually increase but varies considerably.Tomore clearly explain the subtle relationship，there is a need to take into account the changes in agricultural output，agricultural labor use and per capita net income of rural residents（Table 2）.It can be seen from Table 2 that a large number of agricultural tractors do not necessarily bring the continued growth of agricultural output per unit area，but possibly bring crowding-out effect.

Table 1 The use of agriculturalmachinery and total agricultural output value in Chongqing City during 1997-2008

Table 2 The use of agricultural tractors and grow th rate of agricultural output value in Chongqing City during 1997－2008

4 Theoretical analysis and modeling

From the process of economic development in ruralareas，themost direct role of agriculturalmechanization is to increase agricultural productivity，thereby contributing to the rapid development of ru-ral economy.It is worth noting that technological advances can promote rural economic development，and also improve the scientific and cultural level and labor skills of agricultural workers.Due to more advanced technical performance of agricultural machinery aswell as the changes in powermechanism，inputmechanism and servicemechanism of agriculturalmachinery，the current agriculturalmachinery is better than the previous one in terms of quality and use efficiency［10］.Therefore，in order to better reflect the contribution of agriculturalmechanization to agricultural economic growth in Chongqing City，based on Cobb-Douglass production functionmodel，we establish an agricultural productionmodel for quantitative analysis.By selecting agricultural labor，agricultural land，agricultural machinery and farm fertilizer use as explanatory variables，and agricultural output as the variable to be explained，we use the following agricultural production function to build economicmodel：

where Y is agricultural output；X1is agricultural labor；X2is agricultural land；X3is agricultural machinery；X4is farm fertilizer use；T is time variable.

Perform total derivative on the above formula：

Divide both sides of formula（1）by Y：

For the technological advances in different periods，there is a need to take into account two consecutive periods in the analysis of problem，so we slightly process formula（2）and get the following formula：

The raising level of agriculturalmechanization and technological progresswill have some crowding-out effect on the rural labor force，that is，agricultural machinery has substitution effects on labor［11］，so when examining the contribution of a factor of production to outputgrowth，only considering the impactof this factor input change on output growth is partial.In real life，the output growth is composed of two parts：growth of a variety of input factors and growth of factor productivity.The output growth of a factor should include two parts，which can be expressed by the following formula：

5 Empirical analysis

This paper will use Cobb-Douglass production function to derive the general form of agricultural production function：

where Y is the total agricultural output value；A，αi（i＝1，2，…，n）are the parameters to be determined（setas constant to facilitate the calculation）；u is the random interference term；A is the current level of technology；αi（i＝1，2，… ，n）is the output elasticity of factor of production；Xiis the input of various factors of production.

Take the logarithm on both sides of formula（5）and get the logarithmic linearmodel：

Taking into account the possibility of statistical data acquisition，the explanatory variable of agricultural production function in formula（5）is agricultural labor（X1），and this data can not be obtained directly.To obtain data on agricultural labor，we conduct conversion according to the agricultural population，that is，it is weighted according to the share of total agricultural output value in total output value of farming，forestry，animal husbandry and fishery，consequently，it canmake the labor input consistentwith objectsmeasured by output［12］.Agricultural land is denoted by total sown area of crops（X2），and farm machinery can be denoted by total power of agriculturalmachinery（X3）.The data can be directly acquired from Statistical Yearbook；in addition，there isalso a need to consider that crop outputand agricultural chemical fertilizer application（X4）is an important factor affecting agricultural output.The statistical data for various variables can be shown in Table 3.

According to equation（5），we determine the following functionmodel：

Based on the relevant data in Chongqing City from 1985 to 2008，we calculate the contribution of agriculturalmechanization to agricultural output.Eviews 5.1 is used for model estimation，and the-re is first-order serial correlation in random disturbance term，so the generalized differential transformation is used for adjustment.We get the production functionmodel as follows（t values in parentheses）：

Table3 Statistical data of Chongqing City from 1985 to 2008

The LM test is performed on the new residual seriesεt，and the test results are as follows：

Breusch-God frey Serial Correlation LM Test：

From the fitting results ofmodel，the overall effect ofmodel is good（R2＝0.946，F＝77.87，passing the significance testat the 5%level）.The output elasticity of agricultural labor，crop sown area，agricultural machinery and agricultural chemical fertilizer consumption is 0.373802，1.138287，0.945144 and 0.631818，respectively，and the elasticity coefficient is positive，indicating that the various factors have a positive impact on total agricultural output value，but there isa greatdifference in the elasticity coefficient of factors，indicating that these factors have different effects on agricultural output.From the elasticity analysis，there is a great difference in the role of various factors in increasing agricultural output.Crop sown area plays the largest role in increasing agricultural output，followed by the agriculturalmachinery and agricultural chemical fertilizer consumption.Agricultural labor plays the smallest role in increasing agricultural output，indicating that agricultural production is not largely dependent on labor input.According to formula（4），we can calculate the contribution ofagriculturalmachinery to agricultural output：

Conspicuously，the role of agriculturalmechanization in the development ofagricultural economy can notbe ignored especially in the current 21st century.We even must not cast a doubt on the role of agriculturalmachinery in improving people's living conditions and agricultural productivity.

6 Conclusions and recommendations

（i）In the science and technology and information era，agriculturalmechanization will play a leading role in the developmentof agricultural economy，and continue to change the traditional extensive operation mode featured by the increase of agricultural labor and chemical fertilizer to promote the development of agricultural economy.（ii）The agricultural labor input has a small impact on agricultural outputgrowth，and the quality and quantity ofagricultural labormasteringmodern science and technology is the key to development ofmodern agricultural economy.（iii）In the process of promoting agricultural modernization，it is necessary to avoid the blind dependence on the increase of large and medium-sized agriculturalmachinery，and choose reasonablematching combinations of various types of agriculturalmachinery in accordance with the local socialand economic developmentand geographical conditions.Therefore，in the processof promoting agriculturalmodernization，industrialization and regional specialization in Chongqing City，it is necessary to continue to increase learning and training ofmodern scientific knowledge for the rural labor，and constantly improve or accelerate the rural surplus labor transfer and rural land transfer.

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