小农发展气候智慧型农业的效率与成本改进:倡导农地流转还是发展社会服务?

气候智慧型农业是联合国粮农组织所提出的积极响应气候变化、有效保障作物生产安全的新型农业发展模式。碳减排是发展气候智慧型农业的核心要义,而中国大量且长期存在的小农是发展气候智慧型农业不可背离的重要主体。基于湖北省水稻主产区气候智慧型农业发展的调研,继而利用方向性距离函数对小农发展气候智慧型农业,即低碳生产效率与碳边际减排成本进行测算,并进一步考察小农通过土地流转或农业社会化服务衔接现代农业,对低碳生产效率和碳边际减排成本的影响。结果表明:(1)基于小农发展气候智慧型农业仍处于"低效率—高成本"阶段,水稻低碳生产效率仍存在平均56%的提升空间;碳边际减排成本均值为34.13元/kgCE;(2)土地转入虽未能提升水稻低碳生产效率,但却具有碳边际减排成本优势;(3)生产雇工和农机服务对水稻低碳生产效率和碳边际减排成本均具有显著的正向影响,可见通过农业社会化服务实现低碳生产效率的提升仍面临分工与交易费用的两难之困。基于上述结论,提出促进小农发展气候智慧型农业,实现低碳生产相关政策启示。

Improving Efficiency and Costs in Developing Climate-Smart Agriculture by Smallholder Farmers: Enhancing Land Transfer or Socialization Services?

Climate smart agriculture (CSA) is a novel agricultural approach developed by the United Nations. CSA aims to actively respond to climate variability and ensure sustainable crop production. Carbon reduction is an important goal in the development of CSA. Chinese agriculture is largely composed of smallholder farmers. Thus, it is important to develop CSA practices tailored to their specific characteristics. Using data from major rice production areas in the Hubei Province, this paper employs a directional distance function approach to measure low-carbon production efficiency and marginal carbon abatement costs for small scale farming. Additionally, we examine the impact of land transfer and agricultural socialization services on low carbon production efficiency and marginal carbon abatement costs. Our results show that (1) the efficiency of low carbon rice production for small-scale farmers is relatively low with the potential for average improvement of 56% in low carbon production efficiency. In addition, the average marginal carbon abatement cost is 30.64 RMB/kgCE. This indicates that low carbon rice production is costly for smallholder farmers in central China. (2) Although land circulation does not improve rice low carbon production efficiency, it reduces marginal carbon abatement costs. (3) Employment services and agricultural extension services have significant and positive impacts on rice low carbon production efficiency and marginal carbon abatement costs. Low-carbon production efficiency achieved through agricultural socialization services still faces the challenges of division of labor and transaction costs. Finally, based on our findings, we discuss policy recommendations in the development, promotion and implementation of CSA practices among smallholder farmers.