《Agribusiness》近两年部分中国问题论文汇总

（只有英文摘要，全文请自行下载阅读）

Although social capital is commonly believed to affect cooperative financing, empirical results are sparse. Using data from surveys of members of 60 cooperatives in Fujian province, China, this study shows that social capital is related to cooperative financing performance, interpreted as (1) members’ willingness to provide equity, (2) loans from members and from banks, and (3) cooperatives providing financing services to members. Three dimensions of social capital are identified; external, relational, and cognitive. The findings indicate that Chinese cooperatives obtain bank credit more easily if they have been granted government “honors” and if the chairperson has government contacts (external social capital). Loyal members (relational social capital) are more likely to obtain financial services, such as guarantees for member loans. Cooperatively convinced members (cognitive social capital) are more willing to provide capital.

Agricultural cooperatives in China, known as “Farmers’ Professional Cooperatives” (FPCs), are becoming popular and have been intensely promoted by the Chinese government to improve the economic welfare of small farmers. However, few studies on FPCs have measured the benefits to gain farmers who participate in FPCs after controlling for observable attributes of farmers. This paper investigates the treatment effect of participation in a rice‐producing cooperative in suburban China using the propensity score matching (PSM) method. Estimated results show that a significant difference is observed between participants and nonparticipants of the cooperative in terms of net income from rice production. In addition, there is significant heterogeneity of the treatment effects between large and small farmers. Therefore, we can conclude that the participation in agricultural cooperatives is more beneficial to relatively small farmers who are subject to suffer from higher transaction costs.

Although uncertainly is a common feature of agricultural markets, we know little about the effect of uncertainty on farmers’ choice of business relationships. This paper distinguishes production uncertainty, environmental uncertainty, and behavioral uncertainty in examining four kinds of business relationships of Chinese vegetable farmers: market exchange, cooperative membership without marketing transaction, cooperative membership with marketing transaction, and contract farming. We applied a multinomial logit model to data collected among 413 farmers in Hebei and Zhejiang provinces. The results suggested that all three types of uncertainty significantly affect the business relationships chosen by vegetable farmers. In particular, it was found that as production uncertainty increases, farmers prefer contract farming and both cooperative membership with and without marketing transaction over market exchange; while as behavioral uncertainty increases, farmers are less likely to be involved in contract farming. Environmental uncertainty does not affect the likelihood that farmers choose market exchange or contract farming, while mixed results are obtained for its effects on cooperative membership with and without marketing transaction. 

It is well‐known that these nonattended attributes in choice experiments (CE) could cause some bias. A combination of two successive CEs are designed with focus on consumers’ demand for the attributes of baby milk formula in China, where the first CE includes the full set of attributes and the second excludes consumers’ self‐reported nonattended attributes in the first CE. Significant discrepancies are detected for both WTPs for an individual attribute and the total WTPs (the sum of all WTPs for individual attributes in each CE), and in most cases WTPs decrease as a result of excluding the ignored attributes. Changes in WTP are mainly driven by the variation of choice task complexity. However, there is no significant difference in the influence of excluding nonattended attributes on the WTPs for the same attended attribute in different subsamples. In addition, we also find that consumers in China have significantly higher but dispersed WTP values for imported (11.6–47.0%), organic (6.9–52.5%), and probiotics (7.3–35.5%) and sugar‐free (5.9–26.0%) attributes for baby milk formula.

This paper examines the impacts of agricultural cooperative membership on output price, gross income, farm profit, and return on investment (ROI) utilizing a recent household survey data of 481 apple producers in China. We employ a treatment effects model to account for potential selection bias that arises from the fact that cooperative members and nonmembers are systematically different in terms of both observable and unobservable factors. Our analysis reveals that cooperative membership has a positive and statistically significant impact on apple price, gross income, farm profit, and ROI. In addition, we find that the highest profit effect of cooperative membership does not in fact result in the highest ROI effect of the membership, revealing differences in farm income and profitability of investment. 

Using participatory approaches and experimental economic methods, this paper analyzes the impacts of different types of agricultural technical education on farmers’ agrochemical use in China. Agricultural technical education is differentiated as training through a short course and additional personal guidance both offered through agricultural extension agencies. Results show that training alone may generate the desired result of reducing fertilizer usage. However, additional personal guidance does not support the intended goal of reducing the application of either fertilizer or pesticide. This study also detects technology diffusion effect in that farmers who are not offered education but are in the same village where the education programs are offered are more likely to change their behavior. Implications of this study call for better supervision and implementation of agricultural extension efforts in China.

In this study, 110 consumers in Wuxi, China's Jiangsu Province were surveyed for their preferences for traceable pork in a real choice experiment. Using random parameters logit and latent class logit models, results revealed that consumers had the highest willingness to pay (WTP) for government certification of traceability information authenticity. Consumers also had higher WTP for origin labeling compared to uncertified traceability information. Moreover, traceability to slaughter and processing was viewed as a substitute for local farming labeling and complement to non‐local farming labeling. Despite the heterogeneity among consumer groups, all consumers had some positive WTP for the local farming labeling attribute of traceable pork. Therefore, it is beneficial to include origin labeling in the traceable food attribute systems during the initial construction of traceable food markets in China.

This letter examines the state of financial inclusion in rural China. It shows that despite China's efforts at being financially inclusive there is substantial variability across and within provinces. With strong reliance on electronic technologies, China's rural and farm communities use internet technologies only half as much as all users, and less than 2% access credit through the internet. From a policy perspective, China should address problems of financial education and rural credit access.

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《Agribusiness》网址：

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/15206297

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