Conversion Margins For The Major Uses Of Agricultural Land And Their Variations In Shandong Province, China

It is of practical significance for the decision-making on country food security and farmland protection to analyze the conversion margins for the major uses of agricultural land and their variations. Based on the panel data of wheat, corn, vegetable, fruit, and forests productions from 520 investigated farmer households of 13 investigated villages in Shandong Province from 2003 to 2009, and using Cobb-Douglas production function, the revenue conversion margins can be obtained separately, between different grain-crops (wheat, corn) and different non-grain crops (vegetable, fruit, forests), and the conversion relationship between growing grain(wheat, corn) and going out for non-farm work. The results show that from 2003 to 2009, growing wheat and corn are more economically and reasonably for farmers, compared with growing vegetable, but growing wheat and corn are becoming less economically and less reasonably day by day, compared with planting forests. Moreover, the conversion margin between wheat and fruit shows obvious scissors difference. Just from 2007, farmers' growing fruit became economically and reasonably, but until 2009, compared with going out to work after abandoning farmland, growing wheat had no economic rationality. From 2003 to 2009, farmers' growing corn is more profitable than growing fruit and going out for non-farm work after abandoning farmland. The subsidies for wheat and corn have increased farmers' comparative income from food production remarkably, but the subsidies cannot change the general tendency that farmers transform food (wheat, corn) production into non-food (especially forests) production. The revenue difference between growing wheat, corn and vegetable and growing fruit and forests is being pulled ceaselessly bigger, and the tendency that farmers transform wheat, corn and vegetable growing lands into fruit and forests growing lands has become increasingly apparent.