Open AccessProduction efficiency and change characteristics of China’s apple industry in terms of planting scale
Author(s) -
Yu Sun,
LU Yong-hua,
Zichun Wang,
Mingyue Li
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
plos one
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.99
H-Index - 332
ISSN - 1932-6203
DOI - 10.1371/journal.pone.0254820
Subject(s) - data envelopment analysis , production (economics) , arable land , china , agricultural economics , scale (ratio) , agriculture , sowing , productivity , index (typography) , panel data , business , population , agricultural science , economics , geography , environmental science , mathematics , agronomy , econometrics , economic growth , statistics , computer science , demography , cartography , archaeology , sociology , biology , world wide web , macroeconomics
The global population is rapidly increasing, the arable land area is losing in a large scale, and the water supply capacity is limited. Meanwhile, China is in a critical period of the transformation of apple industrial structure, and the improvement of apple production efficiency is an important way to increase farmers’ output and income, moderate-scale operation is the inevitable trend in agricultural modernization. However, few studies have explored the production efficiency of the apple industry from the perspective of planting scale. In China, there are seven major apple-producing provinces: Shaanxi, Shandong, Gansu, Henan, Shanxi, Hebei, and Liaoning. Therefore, based on provincial panel data of the seven main apple-producing areas in China, this study used the Malmquist productivity index and data envelopment analysis to measure the efficiency level of the apple industry. At the same time, the threshold regression model was used to analyze the characteristics of the change in apple planting scale and production efficiency. The results showed that apple production efficiency in different regions of China exhibited regional differences and time series fluctuations. Apple planting scale had a "double" threshold effect, and the impact on apple production efficiency showed a "negative effect–positive effect" trend. Therefore, the suggestion is to appropriately adjust the scale of operation, take measures according to local conditions, promote the upgrading of apple production technology, and realize the integration of apple production and sales by using “Internet +.”