Agricultural mechanization and land productivity in China

ABSTRACT

This study estimates the impacts of the adoption of different mechanized farming strategies (i.e. no-mechanized farming, semi-mechanized farming, and full-mechanized farming) on land productivity. An innovative multivalued treatment effects model addresses selectivity bias and estimates farm household data from the 2016 China Labor-force Dynamics Survey. The results show that adopting semi- and full-mechanized farming positively impacts land productivity, and the larger impact is associated with the adoption of full-mechanized farming. The disaggregated analyses indicate that female-headed households obtain higher land productivity from mechanization adoption relative to their male-headed counterparts; the farm size–land productivity relationship is U-shaped for semi-mechanized farming adopters but negative for full-mechanized farming adopters; semi-mechanized farming adopters living in central China and full-mechanized farming adopters living in western China obtain higher land productivity than their counterparts in other parts of China.

KEYWORDS:

• Agricultural mechanization
• land productivity
• MVTE
• heterogeneity
• China

Acknowledgments

Xiaoshi Zhou acknowledges the financial support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 72003089).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data Availability Statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the leading author, Xiaoshi Zhou, upon reasonable request.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China [72003089].