Abstract
Increasing agricultural operating income is not only an important step in improving agricultural work for farmers in the new era, but is also a powerful way to promote rural revitalization. To improve our understanding of the high-quality development of agriculture in China, the factors limiting agricultural income and the impact of the level of agricultural mechanization on agricultural production and income and its mechanism were analysed. Based on field survey data on farmers, this study analysed the influence of agricultural mechanization level on agricultural production and income by utilizing a sample-modified endogenous merging model and a threshold effect model. The level of mechanization has a significant positive impact on the cost, output value, income and return rate of all types of crops. For every 1% increase in the level of mechanization, the yields of all crops, grain crops and cash crops increase by 1.2151, 1.5941 and 0.4351%, respectively. Heterogeneity analysis shows that the level of mechanization has a certain threshold effect on income, with a greater effect occurring after the threshold. A test of action mechanism shows that the mechanization level can increase income via a factor intensification path and quality improvement path, with the partial mediation effects of the two paths being 28.8 and 27.4%, respectively. It is recommended to increase subsidies to purchase agricultural machinery, research and promote machinery suitable for cash crops, increase the level of socialized agricultural services, and improve the ability of farmers to apply novel agricultural machinery and tools so as to increase their operating profits.
Highlights
As China’s agriculture is moving towards a high-quality development stage, it is necessary to focus on improving the quality and efficiency of agricultural production (Huang, 2021)
The level of agricultural mechanization in these two counties is 66.75%, which is basically consistent with the comprehensive mechanization level of cultivation, seeding and harvesting of major crops announced in Hubei Province, indicating that these two counties can represent the production of agriculture in Hubei Province to a certain extent
The cost-regression model indicates that the level of agricultural mechanization has a significant positive impact on all types of agricultural costs, indicating that increases in mechanization increase the cost of production, with the increase in the cost of cash crops being the greatest
Summary
As China’s agriculture is moving towards a high-quality development stage, it is necessary to focus on improving the quality and efficiency of agricultural production (Huang, 2021). The limited income obtainable from agriculture has greatly dampened the enthusiasm of agricultural labourers. A protective minimum grain price and other relevant policies have guaranteed the income of agricultural workers to a certain extent, they have aggravated the problems of inverted food prices at home and abroad and weak international competitiveness of agricultural products (Gao and Wang, 2021). According to The National Data Collection of Cost and Income of Agricultural Products 2009, the average output of the top three grains (rice, wheat and corn) in 2008 was 11891.4 yuan per hectare and its average total. Agricultural Production, Income, and Mechanism cost was 9006.15 yuan per hectare. Ten years later in 2018, according to The National Agricultural Product Cost and Income
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