Abstract
The change of agricultural production scale is directly related to food security and the stable development of social economy. Particularly, the influence of economic development level and agricultural water use on agricultural production scale cannot be ignored. Therefore, this paper uses the fully modified ordinary least squares (FMOLS) and the Dumitrescu–Hurlin panel causality test models to discuss the effects of the level of economic development, agricultural water use, the level of urbanization, and the market price of agricultural products on the scale of agricultural production in China. The analysis results indicated that agricultural water use, the level of urbanization, and the market price of agricultural products promoted an increase of the scale of agricultural production at the total sample level; a 1% increase for these three variables will result in an increase of the scale of agricultural production of 0.634%, 0.377%, and 0.292%, respectively. The influence of economic development level on agricultural production scale accords with Kuznets curve. However, at the regional level, the influence of each variable on the eastern region is consistent with the trend of the total sample. In the central region, the impact of economic development on agricultural production scale shows a U-shaped curve, and the improvement of urbanization level inhibits the expansion of agricultural production scale. In the western region, all variables failed to pass the significance test. The results of the FMOLS model were validated by the fixed effects model. The results of causality tests showed that bidirectional causality existed between the scale of agricultural production and the level of economic development, the scale of agricultural production and agricultural water use, the level of economic development and the market price of agricultural products, and the level of urbanization and the market price of agricultural products. In different regions, there were differences in causality between variables. Therefore, based on the empirical results, we put forward some policy suggestions to maintain the scale of agricultural production.
Highlights
China’s provincial panel data, this paper focuses on the effects of water resources, economic development level, product market price, and urbanization level on China’s agricultural production scale
In order to reduce the issues of heteroscedasticity, we took the natural logarithm of the formula; the formula can be written in the following form: ln ASit = αi + β 1 ln EGit + β 2 ln EG2 + β 3 ln AWit + β 4 ln URit + β 5 ln PFIit + ε it where β is coefficient, ε is error term
We find that the fixed-effect model and the fully modified ordinary least squares (FMOLS) model produce consistent long-run trend results, the fixed-effect model validates the results of the FMOLS model, and we think that the fixed-effect method provides robust and reliable verification on the results of the Coefficient t-Statistic
Summary
The delimitation of 1.8 billion mu of cultivated land red line and 1.55 billion mu of permanent basic farmland in China has important practical significance to ensure the stability of arable land area to the maximum extent. With the development of economic level, the degree of cultivated land used for non-agricultural purposes is increasing [10], which will further affect the change of agricultural production scale. With the rapid urbanization and the continuous expansion of the city scale in China, cultivated land area has been under threat, and the pressure to protect cultivated land is higher and higher. With cultivated land resources as the basic carrier, it is important to study the influence of water resources, economic development level, product market price, and other factors on cultivated land. It is hoped that this study will be of some help to the stability of China’s agricultural production scale
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
